


Regretfully Magic

by Deejaymil



Series: The Seelie Court [3]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Magical Realism, Magical team being magical badasses, Necromancy, Shapeshifting, The mystery of the bell is finally answered, There is way too much Tony in Kate's afterlife, Undead, Vampires, Werewolves, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-03-21 17:17:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 74,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13745646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deejaymil/pseuds/Deejaymil
Summary: There's a vampire causing trouble for Kate, and she's kind of pissed about it since she'd hoped that dying would at least rid her of one Tony DiNozzo, Special Agent Pain in her Ass.A lot has happened since Ari killed her: Tony's quit the team to work undercover in the most dangerous place in the world for him, Abby's now a necromancer guided by Jimmy Palmer's immortal spaniel, and McGee's still dealing with the fallout of being temporarily dead. If it wasn't for Gibbs still being Gibbs and Ducky never really changing, Kate would rather have stayed dead.Unfortunately, she's not given a choice in the matter.





	1. Gibbs and the Empty Space

**Author's Note:**

> **Thanks to my beta, SatuD2, who is always so so wonderful! Updates weekly, on Fridays**

Things are different now.

There are things that are the same, like McGee’s general awkwardness and Abby’s firm optimism and Ziva being one scary woman, but that doesn’t make up for the things that are missing. One thing in particular. If there’s ever a point when Gibbs regrets coming back to NCIS, it’s late at night when he’s alone in his basement with a boat he never intends to get wet.

If there’s ever a point where he regrets leaving in the first place, it’s when he’s looking at the empty seat in the bullpen that Tony used to fill. It’s an empty space in a life that’s filled with empty spaces, and it pisses Gibbs the hell off.

“You know, you could fill it,” Jenny has the gall to tell him, like doing so is as easy as slapping on some plaster and paint or even as easy as finally looking at the pile of applications she puts faithfully on his desk every morning. He’d argue that it’s not that easy, since it’s pretty hard to read anything that’s been shredded and thrown into a wastepaper basket with trash dumped on top of it. Could argue that it’s a waste of good trees to keep trying. But he doesn’t.

Instead, he just grunts and keeps on keeping on, without Tony DiNozzo at his back.

 

* * *

 

They’re investigating the murder of a Navy colonel in a sand bunker at the Army/Navy Golf Club when it brings Hollis Mann back into his life. That’s an unexpected empty space to fill, when Gibbs turns to find at the head of the Army CID investigative team assigned to this case.

It’s not a space he’s sure he wants filling, hearing her voice and very vividly remembering where he’s heard it before: trapped in Hell waiting for death to free him, surrounded by hundreds of other damned souls. But, here they are, standing in the sunlight slotted neatly back into their lives, two Dead Men who never laid down to die.

“You’re looking better than when I last saw you, Leroy,” she says as soon as they’re alone, striding away from the crime scene to search for any evidence thrown outward by the blast radius. Gibbs can see McGee working in the woods, can smell Ziva upwind; these days, he’s always aware of where his team is, at all times. “Despite the scars.”

Gibbs grunts at that, avoiding the desire to reach to his throat where the silvered scars of the collars they’d worn are still vivid against his skin. Mann doesn’t have the same scars. Her parrot shift had been caged too, but not like him, just a pretty decoration to remind them all that their wings were equally as clipped.

“Didn’t know you were army,” he says finally, turning to her and putting his hand out to stop her. “Before you were caught?”

She nods. “For twenty-seven years, before those bastards got me. Army reinstated me as soon as I passed medical and psych—says they’re glad to have me back. Glad I’m alive.” Her tongue clicks a little in her mouth, a bird-like tick left over from when she was trapped in her feathers. “I believe them, sometimes. We sharing this investigation? Lot of holes on a golf course.”

Just like that, the spark of something collective between them is gone and they’re two team leads facing off over a bone they’re not gonna share.

“Sure, there is,” Gibbs answers. “Eighteen in fact. My team will take the crime scene, you’re welcome to the other seventeen.”

Her reply to that is a smirk that’s still awkward on her human face. “When will you learn to play nice with others, Leroy?”

Arguably, never. But he doesn’t say that.

Instead, he just says, “I’m always nice, if you keep outta my way,” and goes back to his work. One more check of his team—Ziva by the bunker, McGee still visible in the woods. And Tony—

He stops, and huffs. Tony?

Tony’s gone.

 

* * *

 

When he goes into work the next day, he gets there early. Usually gets there early; doesn’t usually poke around in the bullpen until he’s got a lead or his team needs startling. Today, the team needs startling. They’re clustered around Ziva’s desk staring at something on her screen, not one of them—except maybe Ziva, but she doesn’t twitch—looking up at his silent approach.

Tony’s on the screen. Abby’s emailed out pictures of recent events, inserting the same static image of Tony into each of them. Tony at the Christmas lunch, at McGee’s birthday party. At the New Year’s party Gibbs hadn’t gone to—he’s a little unsettled to realise he’s been added into that one as well, complete with festive hat and a lit sparkler added to his open palm.

“It is uncanny,” Ziva is saying to Abby. “Like he is truly there alongside us.”

“I know, right? I would have emailed them to him too, made him really miss us, but you know. Email address deleted, like he thinks _that’s_ gonna stop me sending him NCIS care packages. Boy, does he have a surprise coming. Literally, and in muffin form—”

“Does he?” Gibbs asks, quietly satisfied by their collective shock at his appearance behind them. “Don’t think I gave you permission to use resources on hunting down a man who quit us, Abby.”

Abby doesn’t flinch, crossing her arms and scowling at him with the black cats stitched into her headband arching their backs and hissing at him. “Well, no, you didn’t,” she retorts, “but you didn’t give me permission to hunt you down either when you _quit_ , and if I hadn’t, Ziva would be…”

“Arrested,” McGee adds helpfully.

“Dead,” Ziva says. Probably not incorrectly.

“DiNozzo isn’t going to die from a lack of muffins,” Gibbs snaps, not looking at the empty space. “Colonel Frederick Cooper _is_ dead, however, if you’d like me to go tell his son that his investigators are too busy messing around to find who did it!”

Three sets of eyes meet his: McGee, shamed; Ziva, expressionless; Abby, resolute.

“How do you know he’s safe?” Abby finally asks, mouth set in a firm, angry line.

Gibbs knows he better step careful now, or he’s going to end up cursed something nasty by the angry witch. “You think I haven’t already checked that, Abby?”

Just like that, he sees her relax.

“If it helps, I have seen him too,” Ziva says, not unexpectedly. “He is healthy.”

Abby’s head snaps around, McGee’s too.

“You know where Tony is and you didn’t tell me?” McGee bursts out with.

“Healthy?” is Abby’s exclamation. “What about happy, Ziva! Like he could be happy _without_ us.”

Gibbs cuts that off: “Enough! It’s been months, he’s gone! Get to work, dammit!” They scatter, thankfully realising that he’s at the end of his—already short—leash. But, when he turns, Jenny lurks behind him.

“If it’s been months, I have applications—” she begins. Growling, he stalks past her. That’s not even worth an answer.

Three minutes into the day and he’s already done with it.

 

* * *

 

The words from earlier that day linger. _My son, Tony, he plays that same game._ He’s never been more pissed to have had a cover story readily come to mind, so easily spoken when trying to get the trust of a potential assailant. When the case is closed, he goes home and paces. Everything is empty: the bedrooms upstairs where Kelly and Shannon aren’t anymore and the couch downstairs where Tony had slept while faithfully waiting for Gibbs to return.

Gibbs had, eventually, but had he stayed?

If he’s being honest with himself, he understands why Tony’s so sore. He would be too. What he did he had to do to survive, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t cruel. But the man they’d plucked out of those pits—the wolf he’d been when they’d saved his life—that isn’t who he is now. He’s back together, back in his right head. Leading his team—some of his team.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t want all his team there. All those empty spaces filled.

Like his gaze has been drawn to it by that thought, he looks to the carved wolf sitting on the coffee table. He’d carved it, years ago, for a woman who’s dead now. Another team member he failed. Sorry Kate, sorry Tony. Should have never trusted him to keep them safe.

“You look pensive,” says a voice behind him. It’s Hollis, he recognises the bird beneath her tone. It never really leaves, not once he’d recognised it being there. He wonders if she’s as crazy as he is under his practised recovery; knows he’s never going to ask. “Where’s your vampire? I missed him at the case.”

“Moved on,” Gibbs says shortly. “Beer?”

“Are you asking or offering?” She steps closer, hair down and eyes soft. “I wasn’t kidding, Leroy. You look… tired. Trouble shared is trouble halved.”

“Rough few cases,” he says. It’s not a lie. They’re still dealing with the aftereffects of their previous case, a kidnapping with no resolution. Halloween snatch and grab of a marine staff sergeant’s seven-year-old daughter, Sarah. Never found. Someone’s still looking, but it isn’t them anymore. Too many fresh cases needing attention, not enough hands on their deck. Maybe it is time to replace— “Nothing time won’t fix more than talking will. And I’m offering.”

She stares for a moment before catching up. “Oh, the beer.” There’s a pause that lingers, her head tilting slightly. “Do you dream of it, Leroy? That place…”

“Do you?”

Neither of them need to answer that. It’s obvious.

“It’s not really the same though, is it? As when we were there… there, when we woke up, we were still in the nightmare. Together, though. I guess that had something going for it… waking up to someone there, even if they were people you’d be trying to kill tomorrow.”

Gibbs is quiet. It’s not a good idea. He doesn’t share nicely, not his crime scenes, not his trouble, and not his life.

But he’s done with pushing people away.

“Want to try that again?” he asks, staring at the carved wolf as he does.

“What?”

“Waking up together.”

 

* * *

 

One dumb thing leads to another. It’s what he always warns his team—mistakes snowball. They breed more mistakes. Cut it off at the legs and ask for help before that happens.

But yet, still, he’s here. And he knows why.

Even a battered old werewolf like him still gets lonely. Even with the pack back in his world, even with other wolves to run with, there’s a vampire-shaped hole in his life that won’t stop nibbling at him.

He thinks, as he slips into the alley across from a restaurant trying to live up to its swanky surroundings, that this wouldn’t be bothering him so much—Tony moving on—if there wasn’t something _wrong_ about it. The whole situation stinks of something bigger than a simple want to be anywhere Gibbs isn’t. Gibbs knows Tony—knows where he’d run if he wanted to get away, and that somewhere isn’t back into his father’s grasp. Not when he’d fought so hard to get free of it.

But, there he is. Across the street in the middle of a part of DC crawling with his father’s people, fine dining with a pretty lady vampire who smiles and laughs at all his jokes. Gibbs watches critically as Tony works to woo the woman, noting plenty in that short time. Tony’s focus is absolute, his gaze doesn’t wander. They don’t order food and he doesn’t think that the red in their glasses is wine. If it’s a performance, it’s a good one, because the man Gibbs is watching both is and isn’t Tony DiNozzo—a pattern of behaviour he’s been repeating over the last five months.

Tony’s living like any other vampire, even though he’s never been a stereotype before. Sharp features and dark eyes show he’s been feeding on more human fare. His clothes aren’t his. They’re expensive, sure, and tacky—that’s DiNozzo—but there’s no charm, no character—that’s not. If Gibbs had met this man at Baltimore, he never would have seen the inside of NCIS.

He settles, continuing his surveillance. If there’s something wrong here, some power these people have over DiNozzo… he’s going to find out. And he’s going to do what Tony did for him.

He’s going to bring him home.


	2. Tony and the New Life

Considering he’s neck-deep undercover, life for Tony has become nothing but mundane recently. That’s an unexpected outcome of accepting Director Shepard’s assignment—and one that Tony’s pretty damn sore about, all things said and done. It’s not like he expects life to be like a movie but, shit, in six months deep cover he’d expected less _Undercover Christmas_ and more _Donnie Brasco._

Gibbs had always told him to stop treating life like a movie, and this is probably a prime example.

“A wise guy’s always right; even when he’s wrong, he’s right,” Tony parrots softly. “Poor ol’ Lefty Ruggiero…”

Like he’s much better, sitting here in a McDonald’s tucked away in some corner booth like he’s got nothing better to do with his Saturday. The place is packed with families and their kids racing around pensioners out for their weekly treat, and he feels not only out of place but a little out of time too. Dressed too nice for the sticky booth he’s hunkered in that’s right by the bathrooms and with a prime view of the play-place and nothing else. The coffee tastes somehow both watery and too bitter to a tongue that’s six months removed from sucking on coffee as a daily ‘dealing with Gibbs’ coping mechanism, he scowls at it and instead watches a baby—child? He can’t tell, the thing is teensy—pixie smear butter onto the bottom of the tube slide, little wings flittering happily at the mess she’s making. Even as he’s watching, a human-sized kid coming down the slide almost smooshes it, the mini-pixie trilling and darting into the air in a clumsy panic, settling atop the ‘no climbing’ sign on the roof of the playground and making a noise like a horse’s whinny at the kid.

“Colt pixie, probably,” says a voice. Tony looks up to find an agent he doesn’t know trying to sidle innocuously into his booth, flashing his creds as he goes. Well, at least they’ve managed to get one that looks entirely ‘not-agent-y’, although definitely wet behind the ears. Really? This is the guy they trust with his life? Nice. “The kid, I mean. She’s probably a colt pixie. Turn into a pony-thing.”

“I know someone like that,” Tony says glibly. “They bite.”

The agent grins awkwardly, curly hair tumbling and his voice creaking a little like he’s seventeen and trying to get the prettiest girl in school to agree to prom. Tony sniffs. Shapeshifter. Something musty. Like earthworms and dirt. “Anything to, err, you know?” the agent whispers, finally sitting down and putting his own coffee next to Tony, dropping a gaming magazine next to it. To anyone looking, they’re two nerds geeking out over ‘Dungeons Weekly’. Nice cover, Director. “Report?”

“Zilch, greenhorn,” Tony replies. “Why’d they send you? You smell like a probie.”

“I am a probie,” the man says after a blink. “First assignment, actually. Your, ah, handler? Thinks we should, um, I think she said, be friends? Anyway, I’m not under—”

“Thank god, because if this place is bugged you’ve just got us killed three times over.” Tony grits his teeth, already wary of the assignment with Jenny acting all squirrely about one of his targets—warier now that it looks like his bridge agent is McGee lite. “They sent you because you’re cheap, kid. How much contact are we supposed to have?”

“Um, well, like, I’m sort of living next door to you so you have a quick contact in case of badness, I guess, so, some? Easy reach if something… well, anyway, I’m cheap but useful.” There’s a spark in his eyes, something sure. On the playground, the baby pixie is now a filly, shouting “Neigh!” every time her parents call for her to get down. Score one for the greenie. He got species. “This place isn’t bugged. I’d know, trust me.”

Tony eyes him. From the wildly curly hair that covers his ears like a mop took a holiday on his head, right to the weirdly spindly fingers wrapped around his cup of coffee… “You’re not a shapeshifter, are you?”

The kid shakes his head. “I’m older than I look,” he says. “Anyway, here.” He slides a weird key-shaped thing across the table, tapping his finger on it. When Tony takes it, the key is warm and the end slides off after some fiddling—a USB flash drive. “It’s empty except for what looks like an inoffensive text file on trees. Don’t delete that. It’s me. Or, sort of me. Me-ish. A duplicate of me.” Despite how Tony is staring at him, he continues rambling: “Don’t lose it either—I lost one once at a LAN party and it’s like three years later and I still keep getting weird flashes of the underneath of someone’s couch. It’s _gross_ under there. Anyway, it’ll warm if you’re near a listening device and anywhere you plug it in, I can access usually pretty easily. Encryptions can stump me but firewalls and passwords, no biggie, you know? I can just swoosh right in.”

“Right.” A sip at Tony’s coffee reveals it’s gone cold, and he can’t help but be annoyed at this—okay, so some kind of weird bug-detecting something is useful, sure, but he’s still on his own out here. He’s six months in surrounded by nothing but vampires, vampires, and more vampires—

And Jeanne, he thinks, and covers his disquiet with another sip of the cold-ass coffee. Vampires, Jeanne, and this guy.

“Anyway…” The probie is fiddling with his magazine now, obviously regretting putting his hand up for a job sitting on his ass in the apartment next to Tony’s for the next god knows how many months. “My name is Ned.” He doesn’t say it like it’s a fake name and it probably isn’t. Tony wonders if this guy is on any NCIS database—what will come up if his father’s people plug his face into any kind of background checker. Not what he is, Tony’s sure. Jenny’s rash, but she’s not sloppy.

“Well, Ned, I’m Tony. Welcome to the mundanity of everyday life.”

 

* * *

 

Working for DHS Vampiric Factors Division isn’t much like NCIS. For one, the acronym isn’t anywhere near as fun to say. VFD is one F away from VD, and VD is absolutely not fun for _anyone_ involved. And second—no one here knows how to lighten up. There’s no Abby in forensics—no forensics at all, actually—no McGeeky to poke at, no duckpond to paddle around in and get talked at by the good doctor himself.

There’s no Gibbs. Maybe when Tony got here, he’d thought that that was a good thing… he’s not so sure anymore. Not after six months working in the building that’s way too big for the number of agents and officers cleared to be here, realising that, when it comes to law enforcement, secularity is _not_ a good way to go. Clearly no one in the creation of a purely vampiric division of national law enforcement had ever watched _Watchmen_ and realised what happens when you removed oversight from the equation.

But Tony’s not here for the blatant misuse of government personnel and proceeds and he’s not even here for the miscarriages of justice he now bumps up against weekly. Cases being swept under the proverbial rug and deals being cut that really shouldn’t be… they’re not his game.

It’s a casual outfit, enough that he only really needs to poke his head in once a week and he doesn’t even have a desk on-site—no one does, from what he can tell, any agent he’s been partnered with works remotely from wherever they’re needed. But that doesn’t matter, because wherever he goes, his target goes too.

Guess there’s some benefit to being groomed for this job from childhood. No one questions his place at his father’s heel, not like they’d questioned his place at Gibbs’.

Tony’s eating a mandarin extra slow because he knows it annoys his father when he looks all ‘sticky’, like a good bodyguard should always have clean hands or something. He’s perched on the hood of his car with juicy fingers, watching across the darkened parking lot as his dad—the con man to end all con mans, and that’s the only way Tony can figure that he oozed his way into an actual government position, even one shadier than the Everglades—chats to the targiest target of all targets: _La Grenouille_ , ‘The Frog’. Jenny’s number one. She’s got a bullseye on the man and Tony’s the one zeroing in. With minimal success, until now.

Why his father, the head of the resource planning office, is chumming around with a French arms dealer… Tony would mutter to himself about the idiocy behind the career move, if it isn’t for the fact that both men have eyes on him: DiNozzo Senior is smiling; _La Grenouille_ just looks unamused. Probably because of Jeanne.

Tony amends that as the man sneers and turns away: definitely because of Jeanne.

He’d told Jenny that him banging The Frog’s daughter was only going to cause trouble but, then again, they hadn’t known then that Senior was paling it up with the guy. He’s a damn honey pot and in too deep; Gibbs would be livid if he’d seen what a mess this whole op is turning out to be. A probie for a partner, the director herself as a handler, not a damn single person other than those two with eyes on him as his focus had expanded from his father, to his father and The Frog, to the entire damn VFD. Undercover as the fly in a spider-web that’s way too big for him to bluff his way through.

“Junior?”

Tony twitches up to find his father standing in front of him, the car holding _La Grenouille_ pulling away. Probably going to piss the director off that he had a direct shot and didn’t do anything but there’s not much to do about that right now. Tony’s got a feeling there’s something bigger here than The Frog or his pretty daughter.

“When you used to tell me that working for you would be fun, I didn’t expect standing in parking lots to make up the majority of it,” Tony snipes, sliding off the hood and walking to the driver’s side door. “You paying me to lurk?”

Senior glances up at him, fangs visible as he smiles openly. Show-off. Tony likes to keep his weapons sheathed: speak softly, carry big teeth, or something like that. “I’m paying you to be the visible face of my ability to sire a hierarchy,” he responds with unsettling ease considering he’s likening raising children to a pyramid scheme. Get rich quick, spawn lots of sons. “Now that you’re back in the fold, they’re finally taking me seriously, Junior. No more whispering behind my back that I went wrong with you, that you’re not a real DiNozzo. They finally believe that I can claw my way back to influence—but you know this, it’s why you’re back.”

Tony swallows back something biting, sliding his hands over the steering wheel as the words sting just a little. Not as much as they used to. “With all your wives, I’d have assumed you’d have replaced me by now. Junior two point oh. More features, less bugs.” Bugs like having a brain, for one. Tony’s got clear memories of his playmates as a kid, the children of the people his father had surrounded them with: clear memories of a bunch of polite, well-mannered sheep. He’s of the not-so-subtle opinion that, for a species so sure they’re supreme, vampires raise a whole lot of idiots.

“Children are hard to replace.” Senior’s voice is casual, but Tony knows the inflection here isn’t ‘children are priceless’ so much as ‘time plus money equals a cost not offset by the guarantee that they won’t end up like you’.

“I dunno.” Tony starts the car, feeling tired despite it only being ten a.m. Here comes another day of following his father around with nothing but a brief contact with target no. one to show for it. No information, no leads, no bigger fish. Just a gut feeling he must have caught from Gibbs. “I hear it’s both easy and fun to make new babies.”

Senior laughs, but the sound is cold. “Not like you. No… definitely not like you.”

Tony only wishes there was something shaped like pride in that statement; although, considering he’s here on a quest to take his crooked father down and the rest of the rogue vamps with him, maybe it’s good that there isn’t.

 

* * *

 

When he gets home that night, there are muffins on his doorstep.

“Hmm,” says Tony, checking the muffins for cake-based explosives before picking them up and sniffing them—to check for cake-based curses slash poisons. A man can never be too careful with unexpected baked goods. The sniff is only slightly settling; the muffins smell like Abby, which means both that they won’t kill him—good—but also that she’s tracked him down—bad. “Damnit, Abby…”

“Hey, Tony, problem?” Ned is strolling up the hall, arms full of groceries and expression a fixed kind of ‘neighbourly’.

“Nah,” Tony says. Terse smile, nod, retreat with him and his muffins into his apartment: sure, he’s glad he’s got a hand here now, but he doesn’t want to be buddies with him just yet. “Thanks, Ned!”

If Ned replies, Tony doesn’t hear over the sound of him closing the door.

Here he is. Home sweet home. It’s a one-roomed apartment with no decorations and nothing but a single bed against the wall and a flat-screened TV adjacent. No kitchenette—just a mini-fridge stocking what the local Cash 4 Blood sells him and a microwave for all that faux warming it needs. The room smells of nothing because no one but him comes in here and he doesn’t have a scent to leave. The clothes hanging in the singular closet which is the only door off other than the bathroom are bland, boring, expensive with no pizazz. It’s a lonely room and a lonely feeling to walk in and prop the muffins on his coffee table, hating everything vampiric. A culture of minimalistic modernity to the point of erasure… what happened to showing a bit of character when going boo in the night?

The first bite of the muffin tastes like nothing but dry. It’s not that they _are_ dry—he’s been living on a liquid diet and his mouth has to take a moment to adjust. It’s not that he has to subsist off blood for this op—it’d just be really fucking weird if he didn’t. Blood makes vampires leaner, sharper… meaner. When Tony looks in the mirror hanging on his wall, he sees a vampire—not the man he’d been at NCIS. He sees danger, and that’s not make-believe. It’s unsettling, a little. He doesn’t see anything that his family—his _actual_ family, back at NCIS—would recognise.

If there’s a moment he regrets letting his anger at Gibbs drive him away, it’s right now. It’s right now, and it’s all the nows before—laying in bed with his mouth stained copper in a room filled with nothing that he’d owned before, drowning in loneliness and a relentless hunger for something else.

He wants to go home. Wants Abby and Tim and Ducky and even Jimmy Palmer. Wants his DVDs and his apartment that cost less than this one but with four times as much stuff. Even wants Gibbs, because he’s far enough removed to realise now that his flight had been… rash. This whole thing is rash.

Rashier than McGee in poison ivy, he thinks, and then smiles and picks up his keys and his muffin. Instead of moping, because he knows he can’t quit until this job is done, no matter how much it takes out of him, he goes out and finds something to fix his loneliness.

When he gets home that night and finally goes to bed, it’s to the soothing light issuing from the brand-new aquarium he bought for the singular goldfish in it.

He names her Kate and watches her until he falls asleep, smiling for the first time in months.


	3. Tim and the Unexpected Visitor

It’s not that Tim is haunted by his memories of dying… if anything, he’s haunted by his _lack_ of memories of dying. Sometimes in the night, he wakes and feels for a moment like he’s back there again—once he’s awake, he never quite remembers where _there_ is, just a vague feeling like he’s not alone and the texture of fur against his fingertips.

Maybe that’s why he’s started writing. Well, continued writing. He’s always written—ever since he was a kid barely fired out of the kiln with all these thoughts and feelings that a creature like him isn’t supposed to feel. He read endless books and tried to write his own, attempts to capture the fleeting moments of emotion on the blank pages with his typewriter. Recently, his writing has changed more. Whatever he doesn’t remember in his waking hours, it’s still _there_. If the dreams hadn’t proved that, what he’s writing now does.

_The fog is thick. It creeps and crawls and beckons. A lure. There’s a temptation to walk into it. To become lost. Something within calls to the wanderers. It summons. But there are those who wander with purpose in mind—a woman. Brown eyes. Brown hair. The man knows her. Blood in the air. She knows him. A dog? More than a dog._

Frustrated, he pulls the page loose and puts it through the shredder, the _thirrrrrrrr_ of the machine only somewhat satisfying. Next door is probably going to shout at him for it, but he honestly couldn’t care less by this point. Anything to get these thoughts out of his brain in some semblance of order, not this nonsensical rambling. The back of his neck itches, his fingers coming up to skim the slightly rough texture of the mended clay back there, warmed by the magic of his intact sigil.

He tries again:

_He walks through gates. Past gates. Walkways backwards. There’s a reason. Why is he being held? What’s important? A monster in the dark. Not a monster—older. Sharper. Dangerous. Remember this—the man must save him. Save the monster. Save the dog? Or is the woman’s goal…_

“Urgh,” he mutters, pulling the paper loose. _Thirrrrr_.

As though summoned, there’s a knock at the door. Tim sighs, again. Today is a sighing kind of day, he guesses, as though it hasn’t been enough to deal with everyone still moping around at work because Tony had stormed out in a fit of pique like a _child_. The knock goes again, angrier this time. Because Tim is feeling just as childish as Tony, he puts a blank piece of paper into the shredder as he stands to go answer it: _thirrrr._

“Yes, what?” he snaps, already feeling guilty for his rudeness as he swings the door open expecting his neighbour complaining about the noise of the typewriter.

It’s not his neighbour. Neither of the two standing there—well, one standing, the other crumpling on the arm of the one standing—are his neighbour.

“Tony?” Tim asks stupidly, and then looks at the girl. The girl almost ready to collapse—his brain fires up on ‘concerned agent’ first before it clicks onto who the girl is. “Sarah!?”

“Got something of yours,” Tony says, trying to drag Sarah back upright and struggling. Even a vampire’s strength is taxed by carrying a fired clay human. “Should take better care of your—” Whatever he’s going to say now, Tim doesn’t hear it. He’s just noticed the blood coating Sarah’s front, her hands, her face. The eyes that lift to stare at him are glazed and blank—drugged or drunk, he can’t tell which but either is frightening. And, Tony… “Gak!” Tony’s voice is strangled because Tim’s lurched forward and slamming into him, shoving him away from his insensible sister, who staggers back on unsteady feet and slides down against the doorframe. Tim’s not sure what he’s feeling except anger—this isn’t the Tony of NCIS he’s facing right now, there’s not a single atom in his manufactured brain that thinks it is. This Tony is a hunter, a stranger, and Sarah is _vulnerable_. “McGeek, lemme… urk… let… go.”

Tim’s hands tighten around the man’s neck, unmoved by the gasping pleas. Tony needs to breathe but not that desperately, and his throat doesn’t shift below Tim’s firm grip. Let the vampire be reminded that he’s dangerous too. _The vampire_ , he thinks again, shock and guilt dropping into his gut. He’d just reacted to Tony like he was a monster—not an old friend.

Stunned, he lets go, Tony dropping to the ground with a squeak of shock.

“Timmy?” whimpers Sarah, on her knees now. Tim turns and crouches by her, eyes skimming the blood. What has she done? “I think I killed someone, Tim…” There it is again: the horror and the shock, followed immediately by the intrusive thought: how does he cover this up? She didn’t do it, she obviously didn’t do it, but the optics aren’t—

“She didn’t kill anyone,” says Tony. His voice is a practised kind of hoarse—he’s playing up the damage done to guilt Tim about doing it. Like Tim isn’t already feeling guilty about it… “Don’t worry, McGee. It’s solved. We nabbed them already.”

“We?” Tim asks without turning.

Tony is quiet for a second before there’s a rustling of fabric and the softest click of his foot moving forward. Tim looks at what’s being held out to him—federal credentials with Tony’s picture emblazoned on them: Special Agent for the Vampiric Factors Division.

Tony’s working for the VFD. Which means whatever Sarah’s gotten messed up in, it’s vampiric.

Damn.

“You’ll probably want to be inside for this one,” Tony says with disconcerting gentleness, his cocky grin barely in place. “Can I come in?”

No, Tim wants to say, but doesn’t.

“Don’t touch anything,” he says instead, lifting Sarah up with ease and guiding her into his apartment.

 

* * *

 

Sarah is asleep when Tim finally pulls his bedroom door almost shut and pads out to where Tony is seated on the floor with his back to Tim’s couch. His eyes flicker up as Tim approaches, shadowed by his hairline and the angle of his head against the lamp to his right. It’s an eerie position, made eerier by how tensely they’re both holding themselves.

“You write?” Tony asks, nodding to the typewriter and wastepaper basket overflowing with shredded paper. That’s probably weirder than him showing up with Tim’s barely conscious sister—Tony never turns away an opportunity to tease, except for, apparently, right now.

“No,” Tim lies. He perches on the armchair across from Tony, appreciating the height it gives him as he folds his hands in his lap and eyes the other man steadily. “What happened to Sarah? She’s asleep—tell me now.” _Or else_ is implied, even though Tim isn’t sure what he’ll do. It’s not like he can go to Gibbs. Well, he can, but the last thing he wants is Gibbs tangling with the VFD… notoriously secular and without any tolerance for outside interference. He doubts Tony got in on his employment history alone; nepotism is the only form of promotion within the vampires’ ranks. And that’s concerning.

For the first time, he really begins to wonder just who Tony DiNozzo really is.

“Dead student at her college,” Tony states blandly. “Vampire, his sire knew when he bit it and called us straight away. We found the body before your sister even managed to stumble away. Jeff Petty. Hey, Tim, if this was a better world, this would have been your call—kid wanted to join the Navy. He could have been your dead seamen instead of just my dead kin.”

“Kin?” Tim asks warily. “A relation?”

“Kin, did I say kin? I meant guy. He’d be my dead guy, some dude. Anyway, dead, very dead, so whatever. Navy didn’t want him because of these.” With that hurried correction, Tony bares his visible fangs in a leering kind of smile. It doesn’t help the weirdness of hearing Tony refer to a random vampire as ‘kin’ when that’s never been a connection he’s wanted, with all the mindless loyalty it tends to inspire. “Poked around, sniffed out who’d stabbed him… can’t get far with vampire blood on your hands. It was a set-up, some co-ed trying to get Sarah in trouble, Jeff tried to help… and here we are. Tell her to keep a better eye on her stuff.” He tosses a jar from his bag at Tim, who catches it, recognising Sarah’s favourite brand of peanut butter. “Spiked. Don’t know with what, my nose isn’t that good.”

“Don’t you need it as evidence that Sarah wasn’t involved?” Tim asks cautiously, because there’s a number of things Tony isn’t mentioning here and probably for a reason. Why did a random vampire try to help Sarah with… what? What had they set her up for? A murder charge? Or just a confused night stumbling around drugged, with no memory of what had happened?

“Nope.” Tony stretches, his knees popping as he relaxes back. “Doubt she’ll even be in the reports. They’ll plead guilty. It won’t touch a jury.” He smiles, again. Dangerously. “You’re welcome.”

Tim doesn’t thank him. Sure, he’s _glad_ his sister isn’t going to be facing much more than bad memories about this night—but the federal agent in his brain isn’t exactly happy with the explanations he’s getting. Instead, he says, “Why the VFD, Tony?” and tries not to let his feelings on the subject colour his voice.

Tony looks at him. “Why not?” he says and sounds so terribly tired. “That’s where people like me go, isn’t it?”

“People like you?”

A smirk is Tony’s reply, a little sour and a lot hurt. The guilt returns. “People like the kinda guy you reacted to when you opened your door tonight… that was a fear response, McSpooked. You scared of me? Do I… frighten you?”

“No.” It’s true. He doesn’t. “I’m worried about you. We all are. Come back to NCIS—Gibbs wants you back, Abby wants you back. I don’t know what Ziva wants, but probably not you working _there_. You’re—” He cuts himself off, not sure what he’s leading to now.

“I’m what?”

A memory flickers. Tony in the dark, older and crueller than he’d ever been before. And this Tony, the one sprawled on Tim’s carpet with his smile fixed and his eyes hungry… well, he’s not that memory, but he’s closer to it than the Tony of old.

“Whatever we try to pretend, no matter how hard we fight it,” Tim says finally, “we’re bound to our natures… without my sigil, I’m a mindless automaton. Gibbs almost lost himself in his fur before we pulled him back. Tony, you know this—you know how easy it is to be lost. Don’t do it.”

But Tony just smiles, shrugs, and leaves. Only murmuring a quiet, “Goodbye, McGee,” that’s not like him at all, his shoulders bowed against whatever weight he’s carrying.

Tim doesn’t sleep that night.

 

* * *

 

“Something you’re not telling me, McGee?” Gibbs asks the next day, turning to look at him as he passes. Tim winces. He’d been up all night, no time to shower before work—the smell of Tony’s cologne lingers. “You got a new perfume?”

“Tony came to my house last night.”

There’s silence at that. Ziva is watching him too, Gibbs’ eyes partially averted.

“Why?”

And Tim decides—not the truth, but not a lie either. “He seems lonely,” he says, seeing that hit home in the twist of Gibbs’ mouth. A muscle flicker with that man is basically a sob. “Think he wants to come home.”

“Then, why does he not?” asks Ziva.

“Knows he could if he wanted,” is Gibbs’ grunted response.

Tim shrugs with a nonchalance he knows is faked, wondering if they can see it as easily. “Dunno,” he says. “Maybe you should ask him, sir.”

 

* * *

 

There’s a body found in a chimney, perfectly preserved, leading them right to that man’s sordid history. It’s all enough to pull Tim’s thoughts for a short time away from the problem of Tony or the dreams that still linger in his mind when he wakes every morning. Ducky’s still sore at Gibbs, just a little—Tim’s pretty sure that’s got to do with Tony leaving as well—and Ziva’s, well… he’d say that she’s fretful, but she doesn’t seem the sort. Despite this, and despite the case that’s very quickly turning into a serial murderer with a taste for human toes, Tim still catches her distractedly googling _y. pestis_ and hiding the tab as he wanders past.

“What’s that about?” he asks as they’re driving to the smoked toe-eater’s storage compartment just outside of DC. “The plague. About Tony?”

“Why must it be about Tony?” Ziva snipes back. “Not everything is about Tony.”

“Well, he’s the only man we know who’s ever been infected with it, so that’s a clue right there.”

Ziva turns sharply, and illegally, and Tim takes a second to glare while rubbing his head where it smacked the glass. Who let her drive anyway? Finally, she answers. “I run,” is her reply. It’s not exactly forward, so he waits to see if more is forthcoming. “I run, every night, every morning. Some mornings, I run past his apartment.”

“ _Tony’s_ apartment? That’s almost two hours from work. That’s a hell of a way to go for some morning exercise.”

“I run quick.” Her expression is terse and her driving erratic—both signs she’s deadly serious right now. “He often commutes past the hospital on his way to work. He looks pale and tired. This morning, he was wearing a hospital band on his wrist. And I do not like his scent—it is not Tony. I believe he is unwell, it seems the only possible conclusion.”

Tim mulls that over, pressing that up against his mental image of the Tony from the week before. He _had_ been quiet… thin. Withdrawn. But his cell rings, distracting them both from the conversation—Gibbs got to the storage container first, finding bodies. Plural. And salt.

Definitely plural.

When they get there, Ducky isn’t far behind, pausing in the open doorway to peer in at the white mounds of road de-icing salt absolutely spilling from every corner of the jam-packed container. “Do you know what this reminds me of?” he says after a long moment of staring at the bare foot of a disturbingly preserved body poking loose from the white. “Why, a series of ritualistic killings when I was in my thirties led to the discovery of great rings of salt, miles wide, intending to turn an entire township into a great—”

“Ducky.” Gibbs seems pissed and they all look at him. “Just get in there before the FBI show up.”

“Are they likely to, Jethro?”

“Yup. This makes it serial, which means we’re going to have them up our ass as soon as they find us. Get to work. Now.”

 

* * *

 

Like the ghost they never wanted, Fornell is sitting on Gibbs’ desk when they get back from digging out their salt mummies—four bodies, all desiccated. “Case is mine, Jethro,” he says instantly. “You don’t want this.”

“Don’t I?” Gibbs replies. “And why would that be, Tobias?”

Ziva’s already nudging up next to Tim, ready to place their next round of bets on how long this bickering is going to take before they all learn to get along, but they’re pulled up short by Fornell’s next words.

“We checked the name of your man and ran it through our database. Guy’s a blood mage. That makes every one of those victims—”

“Victims of necromancy,” Gibbs finishes, mouth thinning. Great. Just what they need.

“You need a blood mage to pull in a blood mage.” Fornell pauses, eyes lingering on each of them. “You got any of those?”

It’s an obvious jibe and one they all successfully avoid looking too guilty about. Tim very resolutely does _not_ think of Abby. Or Ducky. Or anything like that. Nope, no blood mages here. Not at NCIS.

“One question,” Ziva asks, eyes narrowed. “What does a necromancer need with so much salt?”


	4. Abby and the Missing Piece

She never misses Tony more than when things at work are at their hinkiest. A salted serial killer with a taste for toes that turns out not to be a serial killer at all, but the husband of one? Ex-husband. Dead-husband.

“Unlucky husband,” Abby tells her computer firmly as she finishes typing up her report on the curious case of the smoked man and his wife’s salted victims. Still with loose ends to tie—ones that she doesn’t think are going to get tied, not with the FBI whisking the culprit away as soon as they’d realised her hands were… well, salted and bloodied, like an overdone steak. Why salt? Why _necromancy?_ Why any of it?

Tony would have loved this case. She wonders what movie reference he would have made…

Bert makes a loud _blluuurgh_ noise from his pond, surfacing and toddling out of the water to drip sadly at her. There’s a mandarin in the evidence fridge for him and she bounces off to go get it, mind still wrestling with movies and salt and everything that’s happened. That’s probably why she misses the elevator _ding_. When she comes back, Gibbs is standing beside Bert, looking down at the hippo and scowling, just a little.

“Gibbs!” Abby exclaims, tossing the mandarin at her hippo in her rush to swoop the guy. He looks like he needs hugging, stat. “Permission to hug requested!”

Gibbs’ mouth twitches. “Don’t really understand why they forced us through a sexual harassment seminar when Tony doesn’t even work here anymore,” he quips. It’s funny—Abby laughs—but also sad, and she does it while wincing. “No one but him harasses Ziva.”

“No one _alive_.” Abby hugs him anyway, despite him pulling a little away. He’s soft and warm and kinda ruffled from work, just how she likes him. “What’s wrong? You look unGibbs-y.”

Gibbs just looks at Bert and grunts.

Abby waits patiently until, finally, he speaks.

“Conversation with Ducky earlier…” he begins, trailing off. Abby winces. Uh oh. No one’s been sorer about the topic of Gibbs’ hiatus to Mexico than Ducky, except, well, Tony. Their little family is still hurting from that, even though Abby doesn’t really get why everyone is so insistent on staying mad. Just forgive each other, already! “Thinkin’ maybe I should have been saying something to everyone a while ago. Might be too late now, for some, but I’m going to say it anyway.”

He’s weirdly verbose considering how down he’s looking. If he’d been in his fur, his tail would be tucked. Abby briefly considers brewing him a ‘cheer-me-up’ something, before abandoning that idea and simply asking him, “Saying what?”

Gibbs swallows. Nods. Swallows again. And, finally, he speaks: “I’m sorry. Sorry for leaving… sorry for not realising how hard… well, it was a kick in the teeth for you all, I get that now. I wasn’t the only one hurting.”

Abby is silent. She doesn’t really know what to say. Yeah, so she’d risked everything—her career, her magic, her life—to bring him home, but him leaving for Mexico had never really hit as a betrayal to her, not ever, and she can’t say that she understands why Ducky and Tony see it like that… but the fact of the matter is that they do. That, at least, is understandable.

“Thank you for coming home,” she tells him, wondering if she’s remembered to say this in the months since his return, and then they’re hugging and she’s crying a little and sort of thinking that maybe losing this again would be more than she could bear. Their family is nothing without the wolf at its head, and maybe he’s a little lost without the vampire by his side. Snotty and wet, she mumbles into his shirt: “Don’t you think maybe there’s someone else you should be telling?”

The way Gibbs shakes his head, it feels like a shudder. A tremble, even, worked deep into his bones. There’s a low almost moan of sound that scares Abby for a second, thinking it’s pained, that he’s hurt, but she realises a moment later that it’s just Bert blowing air from his nostrils.

“There’s nothing he needs from me anymore,” Gibbs says.

Abby doesn’t respond to that; it’s not even worth the words she’d waste on it. They both know it’s an absolute lie.

 

* * *

 

It seems like it’s going to pan out as an everyday vehicular murder case—well, except the car itself is the culprit and Abby’s finding that that’s because there’s a real nasty twist put into the AI thanks to a series of technological curse-frames built throughout it—until suddenly it’s not really everyday at all. Abby’s sitting in the passenger seat of the murderous automated car, wondering what triggered the curse to override the car’s programming, when the damn thing tries to kill her.

Remarkably, considering she has enough magic in her pinky finger to reduce the entire multi-million-dollar project to _dirt_ , it almost succeeds.

“Huh,” she says as the dash flickers rapidly with runes she only sort of recognises. “Huh,” she says again, as the windows slam shut and a sudden ominous whine from the vents announces the redirection of carbon monoxide into the cabin. The cabin that she’s sitting in. She doesn’t panic. Not yet. There’s no _point_ to panicking just yet—she can get out of this easily, just by undoing her seatbelt. The seatbelt that snaps back and pulls her tight against the chair, refusing it give up its crushing grip. Abby blinks, and then panics a little because her next move is to conjure a bubble of air to stop her from suffocating and… nothing. Absolutely nothing. For the first time since she’d realised she _had_ magic as a kid, it doesn’t respond to her. The car seems to take her power and swallow it, leaving her tracing useless circles around her head as her lungs realise the danger and begin to constrict.

She panics then. “McGee, McGee!” she yells, kicking and tugging at the seatbelt as the air situation grows dire. The window doesn’t break to her elbow and Tim—sitting _right_ there in the garage with a headset on and his back to her—doesn’t turn around. “McGee! Help, help! Help!”

And she thinks, for a heartbeat, that she’s going to die. Stares at the runes causing it—she recognises one through a haze of panic and choking as her words are swallowed by coughs—and with that one rune, one to consume breathable air, she recognises the others. They shouldn’t be here. Oh god, those runes shouldn’t be here, and she needs to _live_ because only she can—

She screams. McGee’s head jerks up and around and she’s not sure if that’s because he heard her or if it’s because the elevator doors have swooshed open and Gibbs is half a wolf as he hurtles out. Some small part of her brain realises that he must have been on his way down here when he heard her scream and had reacted instinctively to protect; another bigger part doesn’t care why he’s wolfy, just that he get her out of here!

“It won’t open!” she screams, pointing. “The kill switch!”

Gibbs doesn’t go for the kill switch. She guesses that he can’t—there’s a wild look to his wolf face that suggests that he’s too scared right now to think about logical things like not bringing his huge paws to tear at the door of the car as it tries to kill her.

Then she doesn’t guess too much because it’s all gotten a bit woozyweird in here with her brain coughing up bits of the glas…

She blinks and the glass is shattering. Timmy, oh _Timmy,_ reaches in with his glamour vanishing as soon as it crosses the threshold of the windshield, leaving a clay arm with a burning sigil in its place as he crouches on the hood to pull her out. She’s not really sure how he manages to get the seatbelt off, but get it off he does, and she’s suddenly being whooooshed right up through the broken glass like she doesn’t weigh anything.

Then she’s on the ground, Timmy over her with his glamour back in place, and her magic returns with an oomph.

“Oomph,” she repeats huskily, turning her head to find Gibbs with his head so low his whiskers are brushing the floor and his teeth partially bared. “I almost bit it, Gibbs. That was _close_ …”

His teeth click shut.

“What the _hell_ happened?” Timmy is saying, his voice absolutely shaken. “I only had my back turned for a second!”

“Car ate my mojo,” Abby rasps. “S’runed, crus… cursed. Wow, my head hurts… don’t touch it!” That last is because Gibbs had gone to sniff the car—but it’s not safe, not even close. “Those runes are _nasty,_ Gibbs, they’re…” She has to trail off because there’s something closing her throat in wariness of her giving up what she knows, something beyond the almost-death-by-hypoxia she’d suffered.

Gibbs flickers and he’s a human again. “They’re what, Abs?” he asks, crouching close and letting her sneak a hand up to take his, a grounding touch. Much better. Can’t be woozy around Gibbs. He won’t let her.

“Ducky,” she manages, her throat unsealing just enough for this and all her anger and hate building up. “Get Ducky. He can tell you. I can’t.”

They don’t seem to understand, but they will.

The price of saving Gibbs from the slavers still hasn’t been fully paid.

 

* * *

 

“Ah,” says Ducky, his hand dropping away from the car with his fingers trailing lines of blue. The air smells of salt. Abby hunches her shoulders and wonders when Ducky had stopped being followed by the sounds of bells… “It’s necromancy. Well. That does seem to be the theme of the month now, doesn’t it… concerning…”

“Two necromantic cases in one month?” Tim asks.

Ziva is standing near Abby, her hand on Abby’s arm. “Increased _sha'etemmu_ activity is an indication of a necromantic sect,” she says, every word thudding home dully to Abby’s ears. Oh no… oh no, oh no. She’d thought this hell was _over_ , and now she’s just waiting for them to add two and two together and come up with ‘Mikel Mawher’. “Procedure calls that we notify the FBI immediately.”

“They’re aware,” is all Gibbs replies, his voice clipped. “These things are connected. Abby, you got something to say?”

Abby shakes her head. She can’t talk even if she wants to… the pact of silence she’d made to Mawher in return for him teaching her what she needed to save Gibbs is still firmly in place and will be until the day she dies. There’s no undoing it.

“Well then,” says Ducky heavily. “We’d better start with Mr. Mawher.”

Gibbs’ mouth narrows. “Why?”

Abby’s going to cry. There’s no way she’s not going to cry. Sure, Gibbs knows what she did, but he doesn’t know the _details_ and now he’s—

“Abby took a blood oath to remain silent of all things concerning our friend, Mawher,” Ziva answers for her. Something for Abby, at least—there’s no judgement in Ziva’s voice. “He is the man who taught her how to reclaim the _etemmu,_ the souls of the dead, in order to find you.” If Abby is somewhat hopeful that she’s going to end the story there, she’s sorely disappointed. “He is also obsessively devoted to her with intent upon murdering her in order to claim her _etemmu_ for himself—Tony foiled that plot.”

“It wasn’t really—” Abby begins, but Tim cuts her off.

“Abby, he had a suicide note in _your_ handwriting. You can’t defend that!”

Gibbs is dangerously, terribly silent. “He something to you?” he asks coolly.

Abby can answer that, but just barely. “Once…”

“He ever hurt you?”

“No! Well…” The answer is yes, technically, because knowing what she does now hurts more than any hand he could have laid on her—and, besides, she doesn’t need Gibbs growling over this because Mikel is arrested and stripped magically and Tony’s already reamed her for it.

Gibbs’s eyes now flicker to Ziva. “If Tony knows about this, why is this guy _alive_?” he snarls.

They’re silent. _Because he’s not a threat_ seems a bit dumb to say when there’s a car with Mikel’s magic all over it parked in the NCIS garage, and anything else seems unwise when Gibbs is angry like this.

“He is doing life in a federal penitentiary, Jethro,” Ducky tries, but it’s too late. Gibbs is stalking out. If he’d been in his fur, he’d have been growling as he went, hackles up. “Oh dear… that’s going to be unfortunate, whoever catches him in this mood.”

“Probably the director,” says Ziva.

Abby just covers her eyes. This day couldn’t have gone _worse_.

 

* * *

 

Maybe it’s dumb. Abby’s never been stupid, but she’s sometimes dumb, and this might be one of those sometimes. Possibly.

Almost certainly.

She’s never understood the hatred towards vampires before now. Oh, sure, they’re not the _only_ species people are stupid about, but they seem to be the most consistent one. It kind of makes sense? Tony himself had once admitted to having nightmares about them coming into his room at night—something she’d teased him endlessly about and now finally almost gets, as she sits with her back to the wood of Tony’s door in the apartment building that seems filled with vampires and nothing else.

“Hi,” she says to a mother and her two children who walk past and stare warily at her, the mom pulling her smallest daughter closer. They have the same eyes, Abby notices, and smiles at that. For some reason, this only seems to unnerve them greater.

A lady on her own bumbles past, arms full of books. The same as the family, she watches Abby as she goes. Two college-students follow, joking together until they seem to realise in unison that they’re not alone. Abby smiles at every one of them, her smile getting weaker with every person who fails to reciprocate.

She’s starting to get the hate. Not _get_ like feel it—her love for Tony is way too big for any biases to stick—but she’s starting to realise why others might feel it. There’s a big ‘ingroup-outgroup’ feeling in this place that’s hard not to respond to.

“Come on Tony, where are you,” she mutters, hunching down against the door with her shoulders knocking against it. Gibbs’ fear is contagious. There’s one thing NCIS has taught her—if Gibbs is scared, so should she be. By her side, her bag bumps heavily against her hip, and it’s that she’s focusing on when she hears the sigh and looks up to find Tony standing overtop of her. “Oh. Hi.”

“Hi yourself,” he says, crossing his arms and scowling. Her gut twists a little. He doesn’t look like _Tony_ , and that’s not comforting. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Why not? I’ve missed you. Can’t a witch come see her old friend?”

He doesn’t answer, just looks around nervously and reaches over her to unlock his front door, knocking it open and pointing in. Abby obeys, quickly. His nervousness is unnerving her, and they don’t speak again until he’s shut and locked the door behind him; she watches with interest as he presses his palm flat against the wood and ignites a rune that gleams oddly to her eyes before turning to face her.

“I’ve got lots to tell you,” she offers. Shifting from foot to foot, because this place is bland and empty and not really Tony at all. “Okay, so, Gibbs misses you _so_ much, you have no idea, and I think Tim is writing a book about us, and Jim drove his car into a bus stop—”

“Abby…”

“—but, you know, it didn’t hurt anyone since it’s _gremlin_ sized, but still. Wow, Jimmy. Also, we’ve had so many necromancers this last month, and weird ones too, and also a car tried to kill me—”

This time, his voice snaps. “What?”

“You know, like that movie. What’s that movie? _Carrie?”_

Tony blinks. Twitches.

Smiles.

“It’s _Christine_ and you know it. You’re just trying to get a rise outta me.”

“Did it work?” She tries not to return that smile but fails, too relieved by seeing this spark of _him_ to stay stony and uncaring. She’s not Gibbs—she can’t hide when she’s happy!

He points to his bed and she sits with her boots tucked underneath, bag on her lap. “Yeah, fine,” he grunts. “Why’d a car try to kill you?”

“That’s not actually important, Tony, forget that—what about you?! Where did you go? Why? Are you okay?” Abby inches forward, accidentally spilling her bag onto the ground. A heavy book thuds down between them, the ‘To Tony!’ very visible to them both. “Oops. Well, I guess you know now—I brought you something.”

Picking the book up and eyeing her warily, Tony settles on the bed next to her and opens it as she watches breathlessly. It’s a scrapbook. There’s a section for all of them—for Ziva and Abby and for Tim and for Gibbs, even, and another section for all the cool cases Tony’s missed. So many reasons for him to come home.

“This is…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, just brushing his fingers against the page to wipe away a stray hair from a picture of McGee and Ziva dressed in his weird Halloween costume and falling silent. For a heartbeat, Abby is terrified that he’s crying—but he’s not, he just looks tired and sad.

“Come home…” It’s a gamble, but she tries. He clearly doesn’t want to be _here_ , in this miserable apartment decorated by someone other than him. So, why does he stay? “We’re not as good without you. We had a kidnapping case in October, the first one we haven’t solved—there wasn’t a whiff of anyone else on the premises, not even Gibbs could pick up a scent. That little girl is still missing. I’m not saying we would have done better with you there, but we _might_ have… we need you, Tony!”

But he’s not listening. “Kidnapping?” he asks, head snapping up and eyes sharp. “How old?”

“Seven, or she was. I think she’s had a birthday since. She’s in…” Before she’s even finished, Tony is paging through to the ‘cases you’ve missed’ section and pausing on the photo of the missing girl Abby’s added. “That’s her. Sarah Niles. What’s wrong?”

Tony looks like he does when he’s clicked onto something on a case, his eyes distant but focused.

“You need to go, I have to go out—” he begins, but there’s a knock at the door.  They both freeze; Abby because Tony has, and Tony because he’s looking right at Abby. Another knock, and a woman calls his name. Tony mouths words at Abby—she reads his lips and nods.

_Play along._

“Jeanne, hi,” he says, opening the door and smiling in a way that makes Abby’s stomach swoop with surprise. It’s a little goofy and very charming, Tony at his best. The kinda smile she expects to see on someone… someone in _love_. The woman who walks in is gorgeous and sweet-looking with a smile just as sappy, and she’s also a vampire. Abby can see her teeth from here as she smiles. “I wasn’t expecting you, here, ever. Since when do you come here?”

“I missed you,” says the woman, looking at Abby and tilting her head. “Oh. Eating in?”

Abby blinks.

Wow.

What?

“I was,” Tony says hurriedly, stepping back and waving a hand at Abby. His eyes flicker past her and widen. Abby thinks she knows why: the scrapbook is on the bed. “Ahhh but I just changed my mind, let’s go out. Right now, right now—your services won’t be needed now, uh, lady.”

“You don’t even know her name?” Jeanne asks, looking startled as Tony literally propels her at the door without a glance back at Abby. “That’s rude, Tony. Aren’t you going to—”

But the door clicks shut behind them, Tony yelling, “Let yourself out, cash in the desk,” as he goes, leaving Abby standing there dumbfounded.

“Wow,” she says again, processing that slowly. “What have you gotten into, Tony?”

But she’s starting to think that she just might know.


	5. Tony and the Dead

They’re barely five steps out of his apartment where a flabbergasted Abby is still standing— _damn_ —when his cell rings. It’s Senior, summoning both him and Jeanne in with a harassed kind of misery to his voice, and Tony’s suddenly worried that this is it. All the webs he’s been dancing across finally weaving together—The Frog and his mysterious arms deals that Director Shepard seems determined to halt, although Tony’s still struggling to see how this is their jurisdiction at all; DiNozzo Senior and whatever the hell he’s doing with The Frog that’s got Shepard so riled up; the suspicion he has about that missing kid at NCIS; and how the hell Jeanne ties into it all.

He’s an intelligence agent right now with no intelligence and no idea what he’s working towards. Information, apparently, but all he’s got is that the vampires of this city are rotten to the core. Biases aside, VFD is one step away from being a rogue faction with its alliances severed from that of the DHS and the United States as a whole.

Jeanne’s on her cell too as Tony hangs up his and hopes that Abby leaves before he gets back. When he inches closer with the suave notion of being cute while covertly listening in, she mock scowls at him and turns away, her voice a sharp kind of excited. Finally, she hangs up and turns to face him. “My father is with yours,” she breathes, stepping into his arms and demanding all his attention. Like it always is around her, his mind is torn: part of him loves the way she smiles at him, loves her wide eyes and the way she doesn’t let being a vampire stop her from living like so many others do; the other part is aware that he’s only with her because Shepard told him to be. What does he hope to gain from falling in love with his foot into The Frog’s confidences? “This could be _it,_ Tony… everything I’ve worked towards…” She hesitates and her eyes flicker for a moment as he stares. “We’ve. I mean, we’ve… this could be them accepting _us_.”

“Not sure why their acceptance is so important to you,” he teases gently. Half his attention is on her and her obsession with appearing to be the ‘perfect’ couple to those watching them. The rest is focused on how worried Senior had sounded when he’d demanded Tony immediately attend him personally at his own home. “You’re not weirded out by our fathers dining together?”

“Not at all,” she responds. They’re walking to the car with a relaxed stroll that isn’t at all how tense he feels inwardly. “You’ve been gone so long out of the fold, lonely so long… you’ll see. Once you’re fully accepted into the clan once more, we’ll be a family with everything that entails. Just like we talked about.”

Tony swallows. A memory shifts, dark and demanding: his father after his mother’s death.

_We’re still a family, Junior, with everything that entails. You have no idea how important you are._

“You have no idea how important this is,” Jeanne is finishing with a kind of radical zeal.

Tony just smiles and opens the car door, his finger slipping into his pocket to touch the flash drive tucked in there. He wonders if Ned is listening.

He wonders if he’s alone.

 

* * *

 

Tony’s father lives in an estate in Cleveland Park that’s way too nice for the kind of money Tony remembers growing up with. They’d never really struggled, not until after Tony’s mom had died and Senior had started relying on con jobs to get by, but their money had been a show and not a great one at that. This estate? Sprawling lawns and open spaces in the heart of the richest part of DC? There’s no way he should have the money for this, even if his new wife is loaded to the gills with the green stuff.

Today, this estate is buzzing. Tony’s suspicious as soon as they pass through the gate and find the drive filled with luxury cars parked practically bumper to bumper.

“Dad didn’t mention more company,” Jeanne says uncertainly. “Do you think something is happening?”

“No idea,” Tony says. In his pocket, his cell buzzes— _emergency recall of all active agents_ says the text message from work, followed almost immediately by one from his father telling him to ignore that and come directly to him. “Something’s going on though.” Something that he probably needs to get word of to the director as soon as he gets a moment alone. Together, he and Jeanne step from the car and begin walking up the dark lawns to the house ahead—when Tony slips his hand into his pocket, the flash drive is warm. Something, or someone, is listening to them.

He pauses, listening while slowly scanning the area. Maybe one of these cars is bugged, he’s not actually sure how accurate the detection magic in the drive is… maybe someone’s watching them. But the lawns are silent, the darkened fences around the estate are devoid of movement, and there’s nothing overhead to suggest something winged is watching. Nothing but a row of trees along the boundary line with their branches swaying gently in the breeze and the distant hum of traffic.

“Tony, we should hurry.” Jeanne clutches at his arm, and he can feel her trembling a little.

“Yeah,” Tony says quietly, eyes on those trees and the hair on the back of his neck prickling. “Come on.”

As they walk away from those trees, the flash drive cools. But he barely has time to consider this, because when they step inside, everything he knows is turned on its head.

 

* * *

 

The lower floors are bizarrely empty. Tony can’t hear a single voice within, their footsteps echoing as they walk up the hall. “Dad?” Tony calls, turning on his heel to peer into an open doorway they pass. Jeanne calls out too, her eyes wide.

“Anthony,” says a voice that Tony winces to hear, turning to face it. Ice blue eyes and a nothing smile greet him, all unsavoury features belonging to one Trent Kort. “Lovely to see you.”

That’s a lie. There’s nothing lovely about this meeting, or the ones preceding it. Tony’s sure that Kort wants his teeth in Tony’s throat, with or without his back turned. The man is a snake among sparrows.

“Where’s Dad?” Tony asks instead of encouraging conversation. Kort just twitches his shoulder, eyes half-closed and expression blank. He’s not wearing his VFD ID, or any ID at all, and it makes Tony’s hands itch to search him. There’s a whole lot of murder pies with Kort’s fang marks all over them.

“Indisposed,” Kort replies, gaze drifting to Jeanne, who steps back from it, swallowing. Tony touches her arm reassuringly. “Are you both well? I’ve been ordered to ascertain the state of your health before allowing you access.”

Tony stares. “Are we _what_?” he asks, nonplussed. “Since when have you played nurse?”

Kort just steps forward, mouth partially open. Fangs visible. “Are you well?” he asks again.

“Yes, of course,” Jeanne snaps, anxiety clear in her tone. “Why wouldn’t we be? Where are our fathers?”

Kort examines them for a moment longer before nodding. “This way,” he says, leading them deeper into the estate. Tony only hesitates a heartbeat before following the other vampire down the well-lit stairs into the cellar rooms. If this is an assassination, he’s boned. And Jeanne is here…

It won’t be an assassination. No matter what happens, Jeanne is innocent—not for the first time, he hates Shepard for turning her into a pawn. Hates her father for putting her in the position to be used this way. Hates himself for allowing it. Hates Kort the most. The man isn’t loyal to anything, not his country or his clan, and he’s hated Tony since the day Tony walked back into Senior’s life and displaced Kort as his right-hand man. Regulating him back to hired goon, where he belongs.

But then they’re into the cellar and striding past the racks of fine vintages to a blank wall where Tony knows there’s a rune set into the wall that’s the same as the one on his own door—hiding the entryway to anyone Senior doesn’t want seeing it. The same rune as he’s had on every bedroom door since he was a kid, the first rune his father had ever taught him. It’s a pretty penny to get one of the few rune-witches trained in setting it into doors, but it’s been a part of Tony’s entire life. As familiar to him as his father’s face.

What’s that say about his childhood, that he’s nostalgic over home security?

But Kort has already touched the wall, the rune flickering to reveal the door it hides, and led them through. In here, they find the owners of the cars outside, a furious huddle of faces that Tony recognises from the VFD and from various newspapers and reports—politicians, lawyers, high-ranking officials. All vampires registered to the DC clan, all top-tier. All terrified. The scent of fear is thick and Jeanne clings close. He lets her. This is completely unnerving, on every level.

“Junior, where have you been?” Senior appears, his expression harried and his eyes barely lingering on Jeanne or the silent Kort. “I’ve been… well, you’re here now. How are you feeling?”

“Confused,” Tony answers. “What’s going on?”

But the muttering around him is already revealing that there’s a single word on the lips of those there: terrorism.

“An attack?” Jeanne parrots, obviously listening to the same conversation he is. “Who was attacked?”

“Jeanne, you’re here.” _La Grenouille_ himself is five steps behind Senior. Unlike Senior, he does pause to survey Tony before continuing. “We need all medical personnel who are loyal. There’s been an incident. Quickly, come along.”

Before Tony can call her back, they’ve vanished into the crowd and through another door into an adjoining room. “Incident?” he asks his dad quietly. Instead of answering, Senior just shakes his head and silently gestures for him to follow—ignoring Kort’s quiet hiss as Tony does so. “What the hell is going on, Dad?”

Going through the door after Jeanne is a weird feeling—Tony figures there must be security runes covering the damn thing, because he steps through that doorway and immediately feels like he’s trying to force his way through a thin layer of jelly, the sensation clinging wetly to him as he very slowly completes the step. When he comes out the other side, blinking and stunned, there’s silence. Jeanne isn’t here, just him and Senior. Turning around reveals a door into an empty closet—not the room filled with panicked vampires.

“You have a rift door in your _basement_?” he exclaims. “Why? And where are we?”

“Tony, listen to me.” Senior whirls on him with more worry in his eyes than Tony’s ever seen. “There are those that think you’re still loyal to the feds—you need to tell me now that you’re not and you need to _mean_ it, because otherwise I can’t stop them turning on you. Not after tonight.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” There’s a thick kind of apprehension clawing up Tony’s spine now: it’s incredibly unlikely they’re going to take him at face value. “Who was attacked?”

But Senior shakes his head. “That’s not for you to know yet,” he says with clear regret in his tone. “I… René is worried about you and Jeanne, you know that? I keep telling him, it’s a good match, you’d make good parents, but he’s wary. Your past… and now? Damnit, Tony, why’d you have to go rogue? I need you now!”

Tony stares, for a moment tripping over the name ‘René’ before recognising it: The Frog. He keeps forgetting the man has an actual name, that he’s someone beyond a target on a hitlist—not just a someone, but Jeanne’s father. His own father is almost frantic, rambling with a keen-edged familiarity that Tony recognises. He’s never been a secret-keeper, it’s shocking that he’s trusted with so many. A con-man in too deep with no idea how he managed to bluff his way in, and no idea how to bluff his way _out_.

You’re in trouble, old man, aren’t you? he thinks.

“I’m here _now_ ,” he says instead of saying that, stressing the now. “Dad, whatever you need, I’m here. I’m loyal. I can prove it.”

“Can you?” Senior’s expression clears, hope flickering. Tony winces. Uh oh. Now he’s starting to realise just how Senior’s hoping to wiggle his way out of whatever trouble he’s in—he needs Tony to cover his ass. “That’s good, fantastic. Good. Yes. Well, they’re insisting you do before I can bring you in on this so, uh… come on.”

Where he leads, Tony follows, well aware that the doorway they’d walked through could have landed them anywhere, and no one knows where he is.

 

* * *

 

Uh oh.

Uh oh uh oh uh oh double triple uh oh.

Fucking _necromancers_.

The room Tony’s in has three of them and he stops as soon as he smells that sick, rusty stink. They’re scattered about the room like pitfalls, watching him with disinterest, a bank of computers against one wall and the other lined with lab equipment. “Don’t freak out,” Senior whispers, his voice cracking a little with fear. “They’re with us.”

“I think you’ll find that you’re with _us_ ,” one of the necromancers says with a smile that’s just as cold as Kort’s. “Or have the terms of our agreement changed?”

“Not at all,” squeaks Senior. Tony’s heart sinks. What have you _done_? he thinks again, this time with utter desperation. “This is my son, Anthony. He’s loyal, I told you. He can help with… with what happened tonight.”

“Is he?” asks another of the necromancers, this time a woman with empty eyes that betray her bright smile. Tony can’t look at her without feeling sick: she’s a reminder of what  Abby had almost lost. “Well, that’s good. He won’t mind if we give him a gift then.”

“A gift?” Tony grates out, mind working fast.

The woman nods sedately. “Is he born?” she asks Senior, who goes strangely still at Tony’s side. “Or made? Surely born. Someone as handsome as him…” She inches closer, smile turning hungry as she examines him from toe to teeth. “He’s no puppet.”

Puppet? Tony frowns, turning his head to ask, but Senior shakes his own very slightly.

“Born,” he answers, grinning a grin that’s familiar, and shocking.

Tony stares. He knows that grin. That’s his father’s ‘I’m lying but trust me anyway’ grin, even though he’s not lying. He’s _not_. Tony’s his flesh and blood, born a vampire from vampire parents.

Isn’t he?

“Oh good,” says the necromancer. “If he wasn’t, as you know, this will probably kill him.” She smiles again. “But it’s worth it, I find. The kind of power you can’t find anywhere else… if you’re willing to reach in and take it.”

Tony considers, for a second, running. He doesn’t need this job, right?

Except, he’s starting to think he might—not because of whatever Shepard wants with Jeanne’s father, not because of his own dad being in danger… but because he’s looking at this room, listening to some kind of bizarre pact between a high-ranking VFD official and fucking _necromancers_ and every single one of his ‘this is big and people are going to die’ senses are tingling.

And it’s not a lie: he’s damn loyal to something.

He’s loyal to the citizens of this country and their right to live without being caught up in some Machiavellian scheme to claw back power. Arms dealing? He doubts it’s just that. Whatever people are buying from his father, _La Grenouille,_ and the crooks at the VFD, the answer is in this room somewhere. Gibbs taught him better than to run when he’s needed.

“I’m loyal,” he says honestly and steps forward. “Whatcha need from me, sweet lips?”

She steps close, pressing against him with her hand slipping up his shirt to touch against his skin. There’s a hungry gleam in her empty eyes as she bites at her lip. Her nails nip at his chest. He doesn’t flinch as goes to answer but an alarm sounds and drowns her out, klaxons wailing. All their eyes flicker up to a red light flashing above the exit-way.

“What’s that?” Senior exclaims, whirling to stare at it too. “What’s that alarm?”

“It’s spreading,” the necromancer says quietly and without emotion, withdrawing her hand and stepping away. Tony’s skin burns from her touch, although he’s careful not to let his smarmy smile slip. Necromancers are all insane; he doesn’t want to piss this one off.  “The test will have to wait. Disappointing.”

They nod at each other and slip away out a back door, Tony staring after them with his father looking just as perplexed.

“They asked to see you,” Senior says. “What on… why are they _leaving_? Hey! You said you’d help us if we proved he was loyal! Junior, wait here, I’ll see what they’re… _why_ we’re working with them…” And, with that, he vanishes, leaving Tony standing alone. It takes him a second to go from standing dumbly to plugging the flash drive into the nearest computer, stepping back and wondering if he needs to press a button or do a dance or—

The screen flashes on, static flickering across it before the log-in screen shows up and immediately switches to a ‘welcome’ message without passing to ask for a password.

“Want me to copy the lot?” asks a voice behind Tony. Tony whirls, his uneven heart beating even stranger for a second as he stares at Ned standing nonchalantly there. “No one is listening. Weird this room isn’t bugged. Why’d they bring you here for a loyalty test if they’re not bugging the place?”

Tony shakes his head, feeling hot and cold and confused all at once. What the hell is going on? The alarm is still going, drilling endlessly into his skull, and he can’t think around it to work out what they want from him. “A gift, they wanted to give me a gift…” he says out loud, rubbing his temple. Ned just blinks. “Copy everything you can. How fast can you—”

“Done,” says Ned, the computer beeping once and powering down. “I’m quick at what I do. Are you okay?”

No. He’s grossed out by the burning touch of the necromancer’s hand on his chest, wondering where his father has gone, wondering what the alarm is for, what’s _spreading_ … most of all, he’s sick of this stupid operation.

“Yes,” he lies and reaches for the USB. “Get back in. We’re going snooping.” Ned does so, vanishing with a flicker, the flash drive cool in Tony’s hand as he slides it back into his pocket and goes for the door leading out into the hallway. There’s nowhere else to go out there—he checks—except closets and a staircase leading up to a room where people are talking.

It takes him a second to decide to be stupid, walking up to that door and pushing it open. No one within even looks at him; they’re all far too busy to see him standing there gaping like a fish. And it’s a scene from Tony’s past; a scene from his nightmares.

The room is cast in a healing blue and the vampires moving underneath are glowing too, the magically inclined ones healing. He can see Jeanne. He can see The Frog. Masked and gowned and, in Jeanne’s case, working frantically over the other things that are filling this nightmarish room.

Children. The room is filled with children. Laid out in neat rows of five by five, some of them crying out with pain, some of them coughing and gagging, some of them silent. All of them sick.

As Tony stares, one of them looks at him with the kind of eyes he’s never ever seen before except in horror movies or sketched into picture books. Monster eyes. The kind of eyes people assume he has: nothing in them but hunger.

He knows those eyes.

That’s a made vampire. That’s a made vampire in a _child_ , which is…

He needs to get out of here. Shepard needs to know about this.

Headache drilling harder, he runs back towards the room with the rift door in it and pushes in, finding the empty closet staring at him. “This was the right one, right?” he asks, touching his palm to the wood and noting how clammy is palm is. He needs to calm down. But those eyes still watch him and, above him, there’s a roomful of dying kids. Why dying? Why _turned_? Being bitten doesn’t do what he saw up there, it doesn’t make people sick like that. “Which door?” he yells again, frantic now, touching his fingers to the USB and wondering how much the weirdo within can see.

Ned doesn’t answer, probably because he’s currently in a USB, or whatever he does when he’s not corporal and weird.

“Fuck, whatever,” says Tony, and walks through.

Nothing. He’s still in a closet. Out he goes, frowning.

Activate it. He needs to… how does he _activate_ it?

“Open!” he shouts at it, wincing at how loud his voice is. “Open?” he tries again, this time in a whisper that cracks, another wash of hot panic hitting him. In his chest, his heart feels like it’s trying to tie itself in a knot. From behind him, there’s the sound of distant footsteps.

Anger lashes and he lashes with it, knuckles striking the wood with another force to come away bloodied. And, just like that, the door sparks and hums, the hairs on Tony’s arms standing on end. Visually, it looks the same. In every other way, he can tell it’s completely different.

“About time,” he says, stepping through the rift and away from the horror behind him.

At least now he’s sure: he thinks he knows why Shepard has him working this case.

 

* * *

 

He’s in his bedroom. Not _his_ bedroom now, but the bedroom storing all his belongings at his father’s, stepping from the closet and blinking as he finds himself staring at a stack of boxes reading ‘Tony’s things’.

“What,” he says, deadpan, and turns to stare at the closet he’s just stepped out of. Waving his arm through it reveals nothing, the rift having closed behind him. “ _What_.”

For it to have led him right to his bedroom means that someone had to _set it_ to lead to his bedroom. When? _Why_? For what possible reason would someone want access to a disused room. And not even one he’d _used_ as a child—sure, his stuff is here, but it had been moved here as an adult during a time he hadn’t even been speaking to Senior. He’s never once stayed in this room with the dusty boxes and disassembled furniture sized for a smaller him. The only thing really the same is the standalone closet he’d just stepped through…

Unless the spell was linked to the closet when it was set, not the room.

But he doesn’t have time for this weird right now. Ignoring it, he strides past and fights with the door, the security rune refusing to budge when he shoves against it. It’s a rune he knows—the same as his at home—but it barely responds when he tries to deactivate it. Again and again he tries, the same knotty feeling building in his heart.

Get it together, DiNozzo, he thinks, closing his eyes and pressing his head to the door, breathing deeply the stale air of the closed in room. He’s lost his nerve. One bad night and he’s freaking out like a squirrel treed by wolves.

Oh.

Squirrels can climb.

Opening his eyes, he dives for the window. Gibbs would laugh at the shitty job they’d done runeing this room—second floor, so no one bothered putting a rune on the window. Idiots. Tony could have scaled this height easily at _ten_ , let alone now.

But, when he tugs the window open and leans out, peering down into the darkened grounds with the glint of cars the only light, the distance yawns and wavers in his vision. He wavers with it, feeling the wood of the window-frame complain as his fingers bite into it. Nausea hits, and he’s never been scared of heights—he’s not McSpook—but, right now, that height feels insurmountable.

“Get it together, DiNozzo,” he says again and climbs out, grip slippery. There’s sweat on his neck, his back, his face, dripping into his eyes, and it’s only when he drops to catch his weight on his fingertips that he realises he doesn’t have the strength to hold himself up.

Ow.

Vampires are tough enough that it’s only really a ding, as he lays on his back on the bush he’s landed on, blinking tears out of his eyes and staring at the blurry sky. Winded himself. Sloppy job. He’s crap at this.

And sick. He’s definitely sick. There’s a cough starting to bite at his lungs that he recognises.

“Son of a _bitch_.”

Up he gets, feeling the ground wobble. Again, he swears, his chest burning. Last time he felt like this, he was sitting in a blue-tinged room teasing Kate about her taste in movies.

Last time he felt like this, he nearly bit the dust.

He thinks once more of the room he’d walked into, all those sickening kids. Twenty of them in their neat little rows and him breathing that same air. _It’s spreading_.

Fuck.

While he’s been quietly panicking about the spreading wet in his lungs and his fuzzy, stupid, overheating brain, he’s wandered away from the house. That’s not where he wants to go. He needs to go in—downstairs—find, what? Something… he’s doing something. Spying. He’s a spy. Espionage.

“Sneaking,” he tells a tree before falling over and tasting grass and blood. Fuck.

Fuckity fuck.

There’s a window into the cellar. Somewhere around here. Whoever runed this place doesn’t put runes on windows. Shit job. Gibbs would… something. He just has to find the cellar, sneak in, do spy things. Find out what’s… or is he supposed to be running?

“Tony?”

He’s hallucinating. He looks up and there’s a beautiful woman hovering into view above him, outlined against the stars. Wait, not a woman. A cat. A beautiful cat. Not a bad sight for dying eyes.

“Don’t tell Gibbs,” he tells the woman. “No one watching my six. Think they dosed me. _Again._ ”

“Fuck,” says Ziva.


	6. Gibbs and the Sick Man

“Not really in the mood,” Gibbs says shortly when he opens his door to find Hollis standing there holding a six-pack in one hand, her expression grim. “Haven’t we seen each other enough today?”

“We still haven’t tracked down the missing BZ gas,” she replies. “Today isn’t over. Why didn’t Sharif use it? We were expecting him to.”

Gibbs just grunts. She’s not wrong. Today’s case isn’t adding up. An attack on an isolated target with dose of highly concentrated chemical weaponry—of which ten kilograms is still missing—, Sharif dead and unable to tell them who he sold the rest to, the looming spectre of Abby’s attack still lingering…

It’s starting to feel like there’s a net closing around them, without them ever being aware they’d been in danger of being trapped.

“You okay?” Hollis asks gently. Gibbs grunts again, his head still aching. Courtesy of his own dosage by that worm, Sharif. “You should still be recuperating.”

“I’m recuperated. Peachy. Just…” Gibbs stops; she doesn’t look fooled. “Shouldn’t have let him get close enough to touch me. You coming in?” She is. He closes the door behind her, reaching for her free hand. A gesture that he’s not as grumpy as his aching head would have her think. “Actually, I’m pretty beat. Come up with me?”

It rankles him, to live life while those chemicals are missing, but the case is out of their hands and Homeland Security’s problem now. And, hell, he got dosed today—doesn’t he deserve some kind of rest?

“Why, Jethro, I never thought you’d ask.

 

* * *

 

He wakes alert. Not for a moment thrown off by the unusual surroundings—his bedroom; not alone; dark outside—every sense attuned to the sounds of the night around him. Hollis is asleep on her side of the bed, arm tucked over her head and face hidden. Ears not as sharp as his. Mind not as paranoid.

There it is again. A rattle.

Front door.

Up he slides, smoothly taking to the floor and tugging a drawer open. Weapon within; he checks that it’s loaded—it is, he’s paranoid—and pads silently to the doorway.

“Je—” Hollis begins sleepily, but he raises a hand to silence her. In the quiet that follows, her dark eyes glittering in the gloom, they both hear the front door open. Something heavy thuds in, the sound of slithering.

His security runes are silent.

In a heartbeat, Hollis is a parrot, flickering from human and reclining naked on the bed to darting over to land on his shoulder. The night is quiet enough that her wingbeats are loud, her beak clicking gently in his ear, but he can tell she’s scared. Even her bird heart beats loudly and rapidly to his sharp ears. She’s thinking of their captors. She’s thinking of captivity.

Downstairs, there’s silence. Gibbs doesn’t take to the wolf. Let that be a surprise. Instead, he walks out there boldly—whoever it is, they’re poised and waiting. They know he’s there.

“I’m armed,” he warns before swinging out from around the corner at the top of the stairs and aiming down at the intruder.

Intruders, plural. He blinks and lowers his weapon, finding Ziva straightening from a crouch to look up at him, her hair loose and in her face. Eyes darting from his lowered weapon to his body, flickering straight up to his face as she flushes in the sudden light illuminating them. Hollis had flown to the light-switch, using her talon to flick it on and give him a good view of the foyer and the people down there.

Belatedly, he remembers that he’s naked. Ziva doesn’t seem to care.

He doesn’t either, not once he looks at the person she’s dragged in with her.

“He is ill,” Ziva says simply, one hand resting on Tony’s shoulder. “I have never felt him this hot. And injured—his head is bleeding.”

Gibbs takes the stairs three at a time, his own heart finally racing as it clicks: Tony. Tony’s here, his eyes closed and his skin a ghastly blue-white and streaked with sweat he shouldn’t be physically able to _sweat_. “Tony?” he calls. No answer. To Ziva he turns his attention, kneeling beside his ex-agent with his fingers seeking out the irregular pulse thrumming unsteadily in Tony’s throat. “What the hell happened?”

“I was watching him,” she says simply. “He went into his father’s, fine. He came out, not fine. That is all I know.”

Tony’s eyes flicker open, the glassiness to them immediately worrying. Before Gibbs can stop him, his hand flashes up to his face, fingers probing first at the jagged cut above his hairline that’s oozing sticky blood down his cheek, before going to claw at his eyes. “Burning,” he snarls, teeth out and expression manic. “Stop it _burning_.”

Gibbs stops him, his gut lurching.

“Holy fuck, that’s the gas,” Hollis says, a human—and dressed—on the stairs behind him, throwing pants and a shirt down to him. He stands and dresses rapidly. “Those are the same symptoms as—”

“Call Ducky.” Gibbs cuts off Hollis as he hefts the limp Tony up into his arms. Carrying him bridal style over the threshold—he’s damn glad the man is incoherent, because this is one of those things neither of them are ever living down. “Get him to NCIS now.”

“On it, Boss.” Ziva already has her cell to her ear as she comes, her car visible on the street open and idling with the speed she’d dragged Tony out and into Gibbs’ house.

“Is there antidote at NCIS?” Hollis calls, sprinting after.

Gibbs nods. “Told Ducky we’d need it,” he says sourly, pissed to have been proven right.

And, in the backseat, Tony is silent.

 

* * *

 

“You going to tell me why you were watching him?”

Ziva shrugs, sitting on the autopsy table adjacent to the one Tony is laid on out, her legs crossed and expression still. Gibbs watches her carefully because it’s easier than watching Ducky poke at the cut on DiNozzo’s head, one of the doctor’s hands glowing minutely as he holds it to the barely conscious vampire’s skin. Tony’s been dosed with antidote—Ducky’s sure he’s going to be fine, thanks to how fast Ziva acted—but it’s still unnerving how out of it he is. Gibbs doesn’t want to see it. Or maybe he’s just not used to seeing Tony sitting in autopsy again, just like he’d never left at all, except for all the ways he’s different.

“I was worried,” she says finally, inclining her chin. “Seems I was right to be. He was talking on the way here—something about dying children, bodies. I am _still_ worried.”

“Hallucinations are a common side-effect of this kind of chemical attack,” Ducky says, head bobbing up as he looks at them. “Ahh, Jethro, I’m going to need to ask your help. If you’re certain that Anthony won’t thank us for medical attention, I’m going to need to stitch this wound.”

“Don’t see why you need my help with that.”

“Well, it’s under his hair.” Ducky raises his eyebrows, Ziva sniggering a little. “He’s going to be _very_ unhappy when he wakes up.”

“He’s gonna wake up?” Gibbs ignores Ziva’s sniggers. Too much going on to be distracted now. “That a guarantee, Duck?”

“Absolutely. He’d be awake now, if not for me keeping him quiet. I want this stitched before he starts fighting me about it. He’s bleeding an astounding amount for a vampire, unless…”

Unless he’s eaten recently. Gibbs winces, watching as Palmer reappear with a pair of hair clippers. “I’ll hold his head,” he says, moving forward to help. “But, if he asks, I had nothing to do with it.”

“Oh, he’s going to _kill_ us,” Palmer whimpers.

Ziva just grins.

 

* * *

 

“Hello,” says Ducky, mid-stitch. Gibbs looks up at him from where he’s poring over a blueprint of DiNozzo Senior’s house he had Ziva pull up, getting her to outline just exactly where she saw Tony enter and exit, along with a list of people she saw there with him. “What’s this then…”

“What, Duck?” Gibbs moves over to peer at the neat patch of shaved skin, the jagged cut set into it almost completely stitched closed now. Bruises mar the white surface, the normally carefully shaped line of Tony’s hair broken where the patch has been shaved away. “He rattled his brains?”

“No…” But Ducky trails off, looking troubled, gloved hand following a line along the shaved skin. “Can you see this?”

‘This’ looks to be a raised line of skin. Old scar tissue, Gibbs guesses. No surprise there. DiNozzo’s always knocking himself stupider. “It something we should be worried about?”

“Maybe…” Before he’s finished talking, Ducky taps his finger gently against the line, lips moving minutely. For a single second, there’s the soft sound of bells—then the line flashes red and fades, leaving nothing but the white line to show it had been there at all. “Oh my. Anthony, my boy, why on earth do you have a _rune_ on your scalp?”

“My guess, drunken ‘frat’ dare,” Ziva says with surprising attention to American college customs. “I bet it does something revolting when used.”

Gibbs watches Ducky, not quite buying that.

And Ducky just looks wary.

 

* * *

 

Tony wakes up angry as a bat in a basket, and Gibbs makes sure the others aren’t there to bear the brunt of it.

“Where the hell am I?” he snarls, up on his feet with his fists bunched and eyes wild. “God, shit, I feel like I’ve been hit by a train—is this _autopsy_? You kidnapping people now, Gibbs?”

“Only when they’re dumb enough to brush up against a fatal dose of a chemical weapon,” Gibbs says without flinching, staring DiNozzo down so the man doesn’t think he’s gotten soft. “You think maybe you’re that stupid, DiNozzo?”

Tony is frozen, his fist unbunching and moving to touch his chest before darting up to prod at his hairline. If the scene hadn’t been so serious, Gibbs might have smiled at the look of horror on his face. “Did you shave my hair?!” Tony yelps. “What! No! My hair! My best attribute! What do I have now? Oh, god, _why_ , why would you do this?! I mean, I knew you were a cold man, Gibbs, but, this? This, man?”

“Ducky stitched your head up,” Gibbs says. Tony’s fingers have found the stitches, even as he whirls away and tries to study himself in the reflection in the polished stainless-steel sinks. “Who got you?”

“No idea,” Tony grunts, straightening. “No, seriously. Why am I here? Gibbs, I can’t—” He stops and pales in front of Gibbs, a feat considering how pale he is already. Concern that he refuses to show sparks in Gibbs’ gut. “I need to see the director.”

That’s not what Gibbs had expected him to say at all.

“You could have died,” Gibbs presses, striding forward and not letting it hurt when Tony shies away. “If Ziva hadn’t—”

Tony’s eyes narrow. “She watching me now?” he says coolly. “You got them watching me, Leroy? What’s that about? I’m a citizen—I have rights.”

“Should be glad for it. You could have _died_.” Gibbs can’t stress that point enough.

But Tony just shrugs and looks more tired than Gibbs has ever seen him. “Wasn’t it you who told Kate,” he says softly, his voice a bare whisper and cracked from hallucination-driven raving, “that it could be any of us, at any time. I’m not scared of dying, Gibbs. I _am_ scared of having Ziva up my ass for the rest of my life purely because I had the misfortune of working for you! I’m not one of your ex-wives—let me go!”

Gibbs doesn’t lose his temper. Lay out the facts. Let him see reason.

Then strike.

“You vanish unexpectedly because you’re angry with me, rightfully,” Gibbs states blandly, seeing Tony blanch. “That makes sense. You’ve never played well with commitment. But then you show back up in the last place you’d ever go—your father’s. That wasn’t your choice. I don’t think for a second you picked going there—”

“You don’t believe I’d go home?”

He’s lying, and it’s obvious.

“Your home is here with us,” Gibbs says, making sure to look away to give Tony the privacy to respond to that. By the time he looks back, Tony’s expression is practised impassivity. “You going back there… that smells like Jenny. You playing hound dog for her now, Tony? Chasing a bone for your master?”

“Gibbs, don’t…”

Gibbs does. “What’s the op? Corruption? Some vamp trying to buy into the Navy? Arms dealing? Smuggling? It has to be big—it’s expensive, running deep-cover this long. You’re an _asset_. High stakes, high cost—and an agent she sees as expendable.” Tony is quiet, but Gibbs knows he’s right. Damn _Jenny_. Can’t she see Tony’s not right for this work? Not _this_ work! Gibbs wouldn’t have put him within five-hundred yards of those weasels at the VFD—and Jenny’s dropped him right in the middle. “You’re not expendable, Tony, not to me—let me help you. It’s not too late to extract you.”

“Yes, it is.” For all that he’s trying to seem tough, Tony looks somehow broken by this admission.

“Why?”

And Tony takes a deep breath and answers him in a voice so quiet that Gibbs almost doesn’t hear it over the sound of the autopsy doors opening, Jenny’s footsteps clicking in.

But his hearing has always been better than hers.

“Because I’m one of them,” is what Tony whispers.

Gibbs is heartbroken to realise that he believes it.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs waits until Tony and Jenny are done before storming in there, seeing Cynthia sigh as he strides past. He’s given them enough time to chatter—he wants to know what’s going on and he wants to know six months ago, when this bullshit started.

“Brief me,” he demands, slamming the door shut behind him and not wincing at how rough Tony looks slumped in a chair with a bottle of water resting on his knees. “Now.”

“Is that any way to speak to your commanding officer, Agent Gibbs?” Jenny says with dangerous calm, tipping her chin in a way that bares the scarring on her throat.

“No,” Gibbs admits. “But it’s damn well the way I talk to someone who almost got one of my agents killed.”

“Not your agent,” Tony mutters. They both ignore him.

There’s a soft cough in the corner of the room, a mousey looking probie bolting out of his chair and staring worriedly at Gibbs. “Should I go?” he squeaks. Gibbs sniffs. Imp. Bah.

Ten seconds later, he wonders why this kid is in here.

“You’re partnered with a probie?” he asks DiNozzo with a calm he doesn’t feel.

“Agent Gibbs—” warns Jenny.

“Who’s your handler?” Gibbs demands.

Tony’s eyes flicker to Jenny.

Son of a bitch.

“Brief. Me.” He’s not going to take no for an answer—Tony’s up shit creek and Jenny’s lit the paddle on fire, and Gibbs is going after him no matter how much it stinks. “Let me in. We can help.” He pauses, eyes on Jenny, judging her reactions. Invisible to anyone who doesn’t know her like he does: temptation. Unease. So she wants to say yes—because this case is important, dangerously so, or else she wouldn’t be stamping on Gibbs’ tail like this—but she can’t because… because he won’t approve.

Ah.

“ _La Grenouille,”_ he announces, straightening his back. A flash of relief darts over Tony’s features, before he twists them into a scowl. “All this for The Frog, Director? I thought you’d stopped obsessing over him.”

“He’s a danger to this country.” Her voice is calm; her bearing is not. Too close. She’s too damn close to this.

“Why Tony?” He doesn’t have to snap now—he’s sure that she’ll tell him.

She does.

“He’s working through Tony’s father in order to arm the VFD without the knowledge of the other agencies,” she says finally, reaching for a file and hesitating before walking forward to give it to him. “That’s redacted, but the general idea is in there. Until tonight, we didn’t realise just how they were arming them. And we still don’t know why, or what their target is beyond a general uprising. There’s been no whispers of this—if anything, necromancers have been louder lately than vampires.”

“Weapons?” Gibbs opens the file, flicking through. How is this their jurisdiction? The FBI should be all over this, not them. Not Tony.

“You could say that…” Tony’s voice is quiet.

Gibbs watches him carefully. “The BZ Gas?”

“No. That appears to have been used _against_ the VFD, by persons unknown. Tony was a target, I’m assuming—the other vampires don’t seem to be aware that he was compromised, which means I doubt they were targeting him.”

“I cleared those databanks,” the probie pipes up, tossing what looks like a USB from one hand into the air and catching it again. “If you can clear an IT tech to go over it, we might know more—it’s encrypted, and I can’t do anything about that. I’m sneaky, not geeky.”

“Can you promise to work under me?” Jenny asks, shoulders squared and eyes dark. Gibbs doesn’t like that look. She’s got the bit in her mouth and he knows from experience that she won’t let go until she’s done. That makes this dangerous—if their lead isn’t clear-headed, how are they supposed to know what way to go?

But if he says no, it’s Tony he’s leaving in the dark.

“I can follow,” he promises, distantly aware that he’ll buck her command if it comes to it. “Officially brief me and bring in the rest of my team. McGee can do that.” He jabs his thumb at the USB the greenie is holding. “But I’m not leaving until I know everything you do.”

Jenny’s mouth thins, but it’s Tony that talks.

“Do you know what happens when you make a vampire?” he asks.

Gibbs does. He nods.

Tony nods too, his face grim. “Well,” he says, “now imagine what happens when you make a bunch of them… out of children.”

Ah.

And, just like that, Gibbs knows what Tony’s scared of.

 

* * *

 

Tony’s laying in the backseat with his head hidden as Gibbs drives him somewhere near enough his house that he can get home, without being seen exiting the car of an NCIS agent. The drive has been silent. Everything that’s happen is buzzing through Gibbs’ brain, his gut working up a storm. This is a mess of an operation. Jenny fucked it, right from the start, and now he’s chucked the rest of his team in the firing line too. They’ll be briefed in the morning, told what’s going on…

None of them are looking forward to it.

“I shouldn’t have gotten sick,” Tony says suddenly, his voice overload in the silence of the car. “Not this time, not back with the plague… I knew it then, you know. Some part of me wondered. Born vampires don’t get sick. They don’t. They don’t have the guts for it, they’re not the same as humans…”

“That was a magical plague. It would’ve gotten you born or not. Magic isn’t flesh and it ate magic.”

“But this time? That wasn’t a magical plague—that was a chemical agent designed to target _human_ bodies, Gibbs, and I’m not supposed to have a human body. Every bit of documentation I have says I was born, Anthony D. DiNozzo, July 19, 1968. A squalling baby boy with sharp teeth to proud parents with even sharper ones. That’s what everything says, right, I have a fucking _birth_ certificate and—” He stops and huffs, his breath straining from a hurting chest.

Gibbs changes directions. Tony doesn’t seem to notice.

“Maybe you were,” is all Gibbs says. His gut doesn’t agree, but his brain says it must be true. Making a vampire isn’t anything easy—it was illegal for most of the nineteen hundreds and before, heavily regulated from the eighties onwards. Nowadays someone wanting to get themselves a nice new life as one of the undead has to go through years of counselling, endless paperwork, psychological mediations… it’s a process, a costly one, and one not available to anyone under twenty-one. And any vamp violating that, biting someone without permission… well, there’s been cases, and they’ve all ended on the Green Mile.

Biting a child?

Gibbs’ hands tighten on the steering wheel.

“Maybe you were,” he repeats, because some part of him is thinking of a smaller DiNozzo, a child, a baby even… and that part of him is the part that remembers how savage he can be when cornered.

“I wouldn’t remember,” Tony murmurs. Gibbs chances a glance back. His eyes are shut, his hand wrapped around the seatbelt like he’s trying to hold himself steady. “It’s dying. Getting bitten is just like dying… there’s nothing of the old you left. You’re just an empty vessel waiting to be filled with whatever beliefs and ideologies your biter wants to pour in… you keep looking at me like it’s no big deal, but it _is_ , Gibbs—if they did to me what they’re doing to those kids, I don’t know who I am! I’m some… _alien_ creature in the body of some kid who didn’t’ deserve to die!”

He’s upset and rightfully so. Gibbs pulls the car into the driveway, killing the ignition and rubbing his eyes.

“I know who you are,” he says finally, feeling more than seeing Tony look at him before sitting upright. “I’ve seen vampires who have been turned, seen how they take a hard reset of their brains and let it turn them into nothing… that’s not you. You’re _someone_ , and you’re loved. Whatever did that, that matters.”

“Does it?” asks Tony.

“Does to me. And to Abby, and McGee. Ziva, even, probably.” Gibbs pauses, letting his gaze fall to the front door of his house. Tony’s not going home yet. Not now. Not while he’s raw and scared and having everything ripped out from under him—especially not until _after_ he’s put two and two together and realised that maybe Jenny already suspected this and that’s why she picked him. That’s not going to be a fun betrayal. Gibbs is going to be there for it though. He finishes heavily, “And it mattered to Kate.”

“And if it’s true?” Tony asks. He doesn’t seem surprised that they’re here, just smiles tiredly and looks, for a second, relieved. Gibbs isn’t the only one who wants to prolong his return to his new life. “If… if it turns out I was turned? I have memories… too many. If it is true… I was a kid. Just a _kid._ What would Kate think then, Gibbs? I’m just the monster she thought I was when she started…”

“She’d think,” Gibbs says carefully, “that we better find the bastards who did it to you and make them pay.”

His teeth already ache to do so.


	7. Ziva and the Undercover Duck

The morning is strange. They walk into work and Gibbs immediately stands and gestures for them to follow him down to the van. They are puzzled—he ignores all their questions about what is happening as he tells McGee to gas the truck. Ziva wonders if this is about Tony.

When she asks Gibbs if Tony is okay, he does not answer.

“Why wouldn’t Tony be okay?” McGee asks. The elevator to the garage dings—Abby bouncing out with Ducky following, all looking confused. “Has someone seen him? What the hell is—”

“Everyone in and drive where I tell you,” Gibbs instructs. “I’m telling, not asking. No questions.”

They do. No one says a word, not even Abby.

And they drive.

 

* * *

 

They pull up at a motel where they park the van and are instructed into an unmarked SUV. Gibbs drives, and no one says a word, until their surroundings are unfamiliar and they pull silently into the darkened depths of a quietly decrepit parking garage. When they exit the vehicle, there is another car parked against the back wall, hidden behind concrete pillars and the shadows of the corner. Tony stands there, pale and tired.

Director Shepard is beside him.

“Tony,” whispers Abby, but she doesn’t bounce forward to fling herself at him as Ziva would have expected her to. “Gibbs…?”

Gibbs just shakes his head and walks forward, his eyes on Tony and the wolf showing within.

“You’ve all been cleared for this conversation,” the director says as they stand before her, all eyes on Tony and without a clue between them. “I need to know that you can all agree to the terms of it before we continue.”

“Terms?” Ziva asks, because someone has to.

“Secrecy. Speaking to anyone outside of this space about this operation will put Agent DiNozzo in mortal danger and jeopardise everything we’ve been working on.”

There is silence at that as they digest it. Something deep and tight in Ziva’s stomach unknots just a little—undercover work is far less concerning, and far more understandable, than her first thought that Tony was ill and hiding it from them. This? This paradigm still has Tony as a member of NCIS, a colleague. He never walked away from them in the way they had thought he had. But, he _is_ in danger.

No wonder Gibbs is looking so wolfy.

“They’ll be quiet,” says Gibbs. “If any of them thinks they can’t, car is over there.”

No one moves.

Director Shepard nods and looks to Tony. “Tell them,” she says.

He does.

 

* * *

 

That night, she runs and mulls it over in her head. This is what she does when a case is complex; it helps to have nothing to focus on but the beat of her paws and the quiet noise of the sleeping city around her. The only distasteful part of it is how harsh the concrete and asphalt of DC is upon her paws, compared to the sand and bluffs of Tel Aviv: home. And this case _is_ complex… too many priorities asserting themselves. The director should have brought in a task-force earlier. This is already far beyond what a single undercover agent can handle.

The director had tried to interject on Tony’s blunt debriefing, trying to assert her own priority as forefront: the man code-named _La Grenouille,_ ‘The Frog’. What a ridiculous name. Ziva prefers his actual—René Benoit—because she sees no reason to hide monsters behind a layer of code. A French arms dealer, supposedly implicit in the death of several Marines stationed at Panzer Kaserne base, in Germany. Ziva doubts this, purely because neither Tony nor Gibbs seem at all interested in this angle of the investigation. For some reason, Jenny is lying to them about Benoit—why, Ziva does not know. Not yet.

To get to Benoit, they are using Tony. It is clever, if crude. The only creature an old-blood vampire such as Benoit trusts is another vampire, and there is no vampire a vampire trusts more than the one he names as kin. If only Ziva could believe that the blank, almost bored way Tony had described his ‘faux’ relationship with Benoit’s daughter, Jeanne, was not one of his performances. Something is happening there—yet another thing they do not know. Three priorities assert: discovering the director’s true motivations, investigating Benoit, and ensuring Tony’s continual relationship with Benoit’s daughter. There are ties of partnership in clans that surmount almost anything else—couples are given access to segments of society the single are closed out of, and allowed greater freedoms within their clan. Tony explains this as though it is common knowledge; Ziva is unnerved by it.

And, to complicate things further, DiNozzo Senior…

Ziva slows. She is in vampire territory, slipping down darkened streets and avoiding the lit areas as she pads her way towards Tony’s apartment. She needs to speak to him—alone. The dead and dying Tony had seen that night at his father’s estate, the links to the VFD—these are all playing high on her mind. Far from Jenny’s focus on Benoit and Jeanne, Ziva has other priorities: there is something larger than they realise at play here. Gibbs is aware. She believes Tony is too, but needs to ensure that. If he is killed or somehow lost…

Well, Ziva remembers how the loss of Kate had hurt them. The loss of Gibbs.

Never again.

As it turns out, she does not need to call Tony when she reaches his home. With the unerring senses of the waiting demon, he is already sitting in his car. For a heartbeat, she tenses, every feline sense jarring at once as she sees the silhouette of his body before she sees him move. From here, he looks dead. The windows are clear, unfogged from his breath, and he is tensely still. But she sees smoke. He is smoking. Stressed. Tsk. His lungs are already compromised.

With a rumble, she passes under his window and arches against the steel, seeing his head turn to look down before she hears the pop of the passenger door. As a cheetah still, she slips in behind his arm as he leans back, pulling the door closed with him.

“Here to tell me off?” he asks, the cigarette in his fingers. She bares her fangs at it, nostrils flaring, until he rolls his eyes and butts it out. “You shouldn’t be here.”

She shifts back, keeping low and out of sight, curled like the cheetah she is. “Neither should you.”

“Why are you here? Aw, Ziva, are you worried about me? And they say cats don’t care…”

“You said you saw bodies, people dying,” she says, settling into the chair and scowling at him when he shrugs. “Despite what the director believes, I do not think you hallucinated those. The files that you found—they assert that there _are_ children being held there. I believe you saw them.”

“I was sick. I thought you were Big Bird—seriously, Ziva, the first thing I did was go back to Dad’s and check it out. There are zero bodies there, dying or otherwise. Ned didn’t hear anything through his weird flash drive hideout in my pocket, and Jeanne didn’t see anything weird there either, nor Dad. Dad says the whole thing was a drill by the necromancers to weed out naysayers. That’s concerning, sure, there’s some bullshit going on, but I don’t think it’s a room full of dead kids bullshit. They can’t turn them if they’re dead, so why would they lie to me?”

But he does not look convinced.

She looks at him. “You said they asked you to prove your loyalty. Perhaps you should be asking that question _after_ having done so.”

“Yeah.” As though worried, his fingers are skating towards the cigarettes again. She takes them. He does not need it. “Problem is, are we sure we want me to do that?”

“Maybe. Perhaps we will learn more when McGee, what is the word, critics that data.”

Tony smirks. “Decrypts,” he teases. As thought summoned, her cell buzzes in the bag looped around her shoulders—easy to be carried in her felid form. “Is that him now? Bet his ears are burning.”

It is.

“You might want to get back here, Ziva,” Tim says worriedly. “Tony, you might want to… well, if you can get here, do it. You need to see this.”

 

* * *

 

“Charles Harrow,” Tim tells them, bringing up the man’s face and details on the laptop he has sitting on Palmer’s desk. They are gathered in autopsy, Tony skittish about being so far away if his father tries to call him in, Gibbs skittish about the probie they have sitting in with them. The probie, in his defence, seems skittish of Gibbs. Understandable. “British-American who worked for the DOD, encryption specialist, and who was responsible for designing and creating ARES, the top secret United States Navy encrypted satellite targeting system. Big stuff. Genius.”

“Dead,” Gibbs says shortly. “Heart attack, last week.”

“So what’s he got to do with us?” Tony asks, staring at the man. “You called me here for this? You do realise every minute of contact I have with you guys increases my chances of getting Buffy-ied—”

“At his autopsy,” Ducky interrupts, “the medical examiner discovered a tattoo on his hip. As it turns out, our dearly departed was a necromancer.”

“And he’s in the files he—” Tim pauses to point to the probie, who shuffles his feet and grins awkwardly. Ziva frowns at the imp. “—found on those computers, Harrow is mentioned again. Turns out he’s mentioned a _lot_.”

“Man’s as dirty as they go,” Gibbs says. His voice is stony and he is not looking at Tony, his gaze locked on the laptop.

Tim nods, his hand gleaming as he has the display flicker through files, seemingly at random although his eyes take in everything on the screen. “Yeah, well, most of what’s on there is coded further and I’m no cryptographer, but there’s some stuff that’s not—like the fact that he was planning on selling ARES to the highest bidder, René Benoit and, by proxy, your father, who Benoit has been passing on his ‘acquisitions’ to. The VFD has been stockpiling an artillery, apparently. That’s the most common thing I’m picking up—Harrow and Benoit working together to help furnish the VFD’s weapon supply, and we all know with what...”

Tony swallows. The noise is loud and Ziva hears it, watching with concern the way Gibbs looks sharply at him.

“That why you called me here?” Tony manages to croak out, not hiding very well that he is worried.

“No…” McGee stops the display, landing on one file—a large image of an intricately laced rune. “Harrow was supposed to be meeting with Benoit and your father next week… and you. There’s a transcript of a meeting in there attached to this image, email messages, some bugged phones—yours is bugged too, by the way, Tony, there’s confirmation in here—”

“Not anymore,” says the probie cheerfully, playing with a scalpel until Ducky scowls and takes it away from him. “I dealt with that the first day I was assigned with him. I _can_ do stuff, you know. I’m not just a pretty face.” He laughs, a nervously high-pitched ha _ha_ that they all wince at.

“Uh huh.” Tim does not look convinced. “It’s the loyalty check they told you about Tony—this is it. Whatever this rune is, they’re going to make you do _something_ with it and they seem pretty confident you won’t do it if you’re clean. I can’t find it anywhere though—Abby didn’t recognise it and she’s looking it up now, but nothing.”

“Which is concerning, since at least with _this_ we knew what they were going to do and could plan for it,” Ziva points out, walking forward to study the rune. It is not recognisable to her. “Will they likely continue it with Harrow dead?”

“Well, that’s the thing…” Tim frowns. “I’m not sure they know he’s dead? Because these emails are dated _after_ he died… and it looks like they try to keep contact with him to a minimum. He confirmed he’d attend three months back—seemed pretty adamant that they’d need him and only him to do it—and then nothing.”

“We need to know what that rune does before we—” Gibbs begins.

“Ah, but we know.” Ducky’s voice is quiet but firm enough that they all fall quiet and look at him.

“Oh boy,” mutters Tony, seeing Ducky’s grim face. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“It appears as though, to earn your loyalty, they’re going to force you to commit a grievous crime,” Ducky says, looking old and tired. Ziva tenses. “One that. That, my dear Anthony, is the rune and incantation a blood mage would need to bring one back from the dead.”

Tony blinks. There is silence. For a moment, his eyes widen.

“But, I could—” he says, and they all know where his mind has leapt; there are so many gone that they would wish to see again. Ziva cannot help the shudder that works up her spine at his momentary enthusiasm. The dead are dead for a reason; only bad things follow their resurrection.

“Tony,” she snaps, “No. Do you know the cost for reclaiming the dead?” He shakes his head, a mulish look on his face—the idiot believes that this is a price he can pay to remain in his position, that perhaps he might even gain something good from it. He is _wrong_.

But she is saved from answering by Gibbs.

“Your soul,” he says with the kind of blunt savagery that means he is pissed and barely hiding it. “It’ll take your soul. You’ll be damned, Tony—in this life and the next. If it’s found out that you did it, you’ll be executed.”

“And there’s no hiding it,” Ducky adds gently. “Every law enforcement agency has those trained to find the taint of dark magic… it’s the simplest of spells to find one who has done something like this, and for a reason. They never come back right. It’s torture. Abigail found that out when she merely brought back a spirit—a hollow copy. This is bringing back the entire soul… unthinkable.”

“So what do we do?” Tony asks, his voice annoyingly whiny. “Do we just give up? _Something_ is happening, Gibbs—you know there is! Why are they gathering weapons? War? Terrorism? We need me in there, as deep as I can get, because if we don’t have eyes in there, they’re going to get us by surprise—and people will die.”

“What if we fake it?” says the probie, earning their attention yet again. Ziva winces—she keeps forgetting he is there until he speaks. “I mean, we could probably fake it, if we had someone… well, okay we probably can’t fake it, ignore me.”

But Tony is grinning. “Someone who looks just like Harrow,” he continues. On command, Tim brings up a picture of the man, both of them turning to look at— “…and knows all kinds of esoteric things, like the kind of rune they need to use for this… someone like…”

“Oh my,” says Ducky.


	8. Tony and the Betrayal

The day before it’s all to go down, Tony gets home from work to find Gibbs in his apartment. It’s a shock—Tony scowls at him as he throws his keys down and crosses his arms to face the werewolf sprawled out on his couch. “How’d you get past security?” he asks grumpily, but not really. Really, he’s glad to see him. His heart isn’t in this anymore, not when he’s surrounded by reminders that his entire life has been a lie.

“No one saw me,” Gibbs replies with his usual blunt manner, a damn nice thing after a week of dancing around what the vampires at work aren’t saying. “How you feeling?”

Tony assume he means about tomorrow and thinks that through. How is he feeling?

Wary. Tired. Ready for this to be over. He wants to go _home_.

Instead of saying that, he asks, “Is Ducky ready?”

Gibbs shrugs. “Ready as he’s ever going to be. We’re not going to let them do it, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Make you do it. That rune. You know what.” His eyes say the rest: _I’m not going to let you down like I did Abby._ “Soon as they start casting, we move in and arrest them. We’ll take you and Duck into custody too, cover your asses. No one gets hurt.”

Unspoken, _no one gets resurrected._

Tony swallows. Twice. Once more. And, because this is _Gibbs_ and maybe Tony’s missed him more than he’ll ever admit, he steps closer and whispers, “Kate?”

Because they could, couldn’t they? They could undo what had been done to her. They could…

“Nothing good comes from raising the dead, Tony,” Gibbs warns. “Not ever. You didn’t answer me—how are _you_?”

It’s hard, but he chokes it out. “I’m sorry,” seeing Gibbs’ eyebrows raise a little at the soft words. “I never wanted to lie to you… you mean… a lot. To me. This job, I mean, this job means a lot to me, and you’re part of that, and… I guess I forgot how big a part. I’m sorry.”

“No,” says Gibbs, standing finally and walking towards him. For one wild moment, Tony is sure he’s going to hug him; instead, he just stands close and lowers his gaze. It’s a wolfish affection, this trusting proximity, and Tony is silenced by wondering how he could have ever thought to walk away from this. “No, Tony. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. I left you out there, and that’s not going to happen again. I’m not leaving again, not ever. I’m on your six.”

Tony manages a smile. “Never felt safer, Boss.”

“Damn right. Get some sleep… necromancers aren’t to be messed with. And Tony?”

“Yeah?”

“This has nothing to do with Kate.”

Despite this warning, that night Tony dreams of her smile and a rooftop and a cold May breeze.

 

* * *

 

Tony can’t have any access to NCIS in the lead-up to the op, so there’s a bit of slight of hand in getting him wired up for it. It shouldn’t be hard, right? He just needs to get close enough to Harrow nee Ducky in order to grab an earwig from him that Abby’s magicked to be invisible and undetectable, then get that earwig into his ear without suspicion, then get past whoever is waiting for him wherever he ends up going… because he doesn’t even know that yet, does he? He’s out of contact of NCIS and his father hasn’t said anything yet, right up until he does.

It’s a text message from Senior with coordinates, a date, and very little else. When Tony probes further, all he gets back is _this is it, Junior, this is them trusting you. Don’t blow it. You and me, we’re going to go far together._

“Is something wrong?” asks Jeanne. Tony twitches, eyes up from his phone to smile across the dinner table at her, like his mind hasn’t been elsewhere since the night he’d gotten sick. “You’ve been weird since… well.” She swallows, and he knows he’s not imagining the fear in her eyes, or the falseness of her smile. It hurts to see. Maybe that’s why he’s dumb in this moment. Some small part of him is hoping this whole op will end at those coordinates, finally bringing him home.

“What happened that night?” he asks quietly, leaning towards her and ignoring how her mouth thins with worry. “What aren’t you telling me…?”

She opens her mouth, closes it again. Opens it once more. Swallows again.

“I’ll tell you soon,” is all she says finally, lowering her eyes. “I… Dad told me that you’re going to… well, he said I can talk to you soon, I promise. I’m not hiding anything from you that I won’t tell you soon.”

That’s uneasy. Whatever he’s walking towards, Jeanne knows about it. Her father knows about it.

Suddenly, it clicks. “This meeting I’m going to… did you go to one?” He’s pushing carefully, not wanting to freak her out more than she already is. Whatever is happening, she’s in over her head—has been since that night. He wants to help her. Wishes he could. Knows he can’t, not like this anyway.

And she nods. “We all do,” she replies, sinking his heart. Oh no. “It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt—there’s really no danger at all, and they won’t hide things from you anymore after—we’ll be a real couple. Part of the clan properly.”

That’s not true. Tony knows that’s not true. _Everything_ about this is dangerous.

Most especially the feeling that they’re missing something important.

 

* * *

 

When Tony pulls up at the house the coordinates lead him to, he’s unnerved to find none other than Trent Kort waiting for him outside. The man is smoking, a cruel smile shaping his already cruel face, and Tony puts the car into park and wonders how badly this is going to go down. He knows the team are in place around them—knows them all well enough that he can probably pick out where every one of them is positioned if he can get a good look around—but once he’s inside, he’s alone—

Except, not really. Gibbs had promised him… not alone. Not anymore. All he has to do is get inside and get close to Ducky, and he’ll have proof of that.

“Kort,” he greets the other vampire as he slips out of the car, sauntering towards him with all the cockiness he’s practised over the years.

Kort doesn’t look amused, catching his arm and pulling him close with a low noise. “I’m surprised by the turn-out tonight,” he murmurs, and Tony’s heart slams in his chest in a parody of being alive. “Very… surprised. Did they get the call?”

“’What call?” Tony asks, genuinely confused. “The hell are you talking about, Kort?”

But, before they can talk further, the front door opens, and a man Tony knows steps out.

Uh oh.

“Anthony, hello,” says René Benoit with a smile that’s just as sharp as Kort’s. “Please, come in. We should talk before the formalities of the night.”

“Sir,” Tony greets him with an incline of his head. God, he hopes Gibbs is watching. “Lead the way.”

 

* * *

 

Ducky is seated inside in a comfortable looking armchair, a fire crackling along. Tony is introduced to him—Ducky is a natural at being ‘Charles Harrow’, a famed necromancer that Benoit is pleased to finally welcome to the fold—and invited to drink.

“You see, Anthony, what this night represents is more than just your return to our clan,” Benoit says once Tony is seated and an empty wine glass set in front of him. “It’s a return to the powers of old—when we worked alongside our fellows as equals, as an integral part of society.” He turns to fetch the wine from the cupboard behind him and, in that beat of being unwatched, Tony leans over and passes his hand under where Ducky’s is resting sedately on the arm of his chair. Something drops softly into his palm and, before Benoit has turned back, Tony is leaning back in his chair with the earwig between his hand and thigh and no sign he’d ever moved.

“Did you take an injury?” Benoit asks, seating himself opposite and nodding to the shaved patch of hair and the neat stitches just visible. It’s mostly hidden by Tony’s hairline, but still noticeable enough.

“Nothing to worry about,” Tony replies. “Just a bit of a knock.”

“You should be careful with head injuries, Agent DiNozzo,” Ducky says in an impassive voice. “Concussions have a tendency to accumulate. René, what is this vintage? It’s remarkable.”

That small distraction gives Tony the chance he needs; into his ear the earwig is slipped, and suddenly Gibbs’ voice is murmuring, _“We’ve got Archangel online.”_ Stupid codename. Tony had wanted something way cooler, like _Blood Knight_.

Although, with necromancers involved, maybe not.

“My daughter,” Benoit says suddenly, turning back to him. “What are your intentions with her? Do you want children?”

Tony splutters, hearing Gibbs make a low noise on the other side and Ziva stifling a laugh, Jenny instructing them to keep Benoit talking. “Yes,” he manages, catching Kort’s eye as the vampire prowls behind Ducky, eyes narrowed. “I do. Everything we can offer the clan, I want to give it. I am my father’s man, absolutely.”

He knows his lines. He’d grown up parroting them, after all.

“And when this is done, when you are allowed to ask her hand as a favoured member of our clan… will you also be my man? We require your obedience, Anthony. Absolute and unquestioning. What happens next will hinge upon it.”

Gibbs and Shepard are silent. Ducky is watching them both with his expression genial.

“Absolute and unquestioning,” Tony parrots blankly, making sure his countenance is that of the brainwashed clanmate, nothing but blissful acceptance of his fate. Just like every other vampire he grew up with… he wonders, is his species rotten, or just the DC part of it? Maybe Kate was right to have hated what he is… “I’ll earn my place by Jeanne’s side, whatever it takes.”

“My my, so much gravity,” Ducky says with a low chuckle that’s not really his chuckle at all. “Tonight’s proceedings must be serious indeed. I assume this is why I am to be included.”

Benoit looks startled. “You’re assisting the Sunsets with the blood oath? That’s hardly something I would think someone of your calibre would bother with.”

Tony blinks. Ducky, for a heartbeat, looks thrown.

_“Blood oath?”_ Shepard hisses sharply. _“What? That’s barely a misdemeanour. We can’t justify these arrests on a blood oath.”_

_“Shh,”_ Gibbs replies.

“I thought it would be a symbol of my eagerness to assist your cause,” Ducky is continuing, his surprise hidden once more. “A leader should always be willing to do everything he expects his men to do.”

“Absolutely,” agrees Benoit.

_“Tony, I looked it up,”_ McGee’s voice crackles quickly. _“The Sunsets are an amateur group of necromantic cultists—intel has them being the largest of their kind and centred in DC, but they’re also under intense surveillance by the FBI and every report on them I’m finding has them listed as having very little actual necromantic knowledge. No way would someone like Harrow be looking to join them—they’re posers. Hobbyists.”_

_“Unless that’s changed.”_ Gibbs says that shortly, but they all get what he’s saying: don’t assume anything.

“And we are honoured that you would join us, Maester Harrow,” says a new voice from the doorway, the woman Tony recognises from _that_ night walking in. The necromancer who’d touched him—the one who’d dosed him? “The ritual is ready. By tonight, we will be sure of his loyalty.”

Throughout, she doesn’t look at Tony once.

“Well, that’s cue to take my leave,” Benoit says, standing and holding his hand out for Tony to shake. “Good luck, Anthony. I know you’ll do us proud. And, when you’re done, Jeanne will be waiting.”

_“He’s leaving?”_ Shepard snaps. _“He can’t be leaving! We need him there!”_

_“Shh!”_

As both Ducky and Tony farewell Tony, the female necromancer waits, holding the door to another room between two fingers and swinging it restlessly. Tony watches her out of his peripheries, scenting how nervous she is. Far too nervous for a simple blood oath—there’s no danger to any of them with a blood oath, except him, and only if he talks.

“Quickly now,” she tells Ducky with a wry smile, holding the door open and falling into step beside Ducky as they walk down the hall it opens to, leaving Tony trailing behind. “Everything is ready,” she murmurs in a voice clearly meant for Ducky’s ears only. “I created it to your exact specifications and sealed the room—no one has been in or out since.”

“Good, good,” Ducky says, playing along with only a short glance back at Tony. “That’s perfect.”

Gibbs’ voice murmurs, _“Find out what we’re up against, Duck.”_

“Ah, how many are to assist?” Ducky asks.

The woman smiles, and it’s a smile that Tony’s only ever seen on the nature channel before, on crocodiles about to take a bite out of some poor zebra. “Seven waiting, you and I make nine. Once in the room, we can take them… the demon will bring in the others once we’ve done so.”

_“Uh oh,”_ says McGee. _“I don’t think she’s talking about Tony.”_

_“All entrances are covered,”_ Ziva says. _“Reinforcements will not get past us. SWAT standing by.”_

Tony thinks, bizarrely, of the closet in his bedroom at his father’s. Of the rift door down below.

Uh oh.

The woman reaches a door, laying her hand upon the handle. “They wait in here,” she says, finally looking at Tony with impassivity in her eyes. “The ritual room is beyond. Remember, Maester, their deaths are needed. Echo wills it. Vampire?”

Tony grins at her in response, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. Not one of them thinks this is going to be a simple blood oath.

“Enter.”

_“As soon as we have confirmation of a resurrection rune, we’ll move in,”_ Gibbs is saying as Tony moves. _“Stay together and—”_

But the door has slammed and cut off the connection. The earwig is silent. In Tony’s pocket, Ned’s USB is cold.

They’re alone.

 

* * *

 

The room they’re in is filled with silent, waiting figures. They’re not cloaked in black like a bad TV drama—they’re dressed almost normally, in jeans and jackets, except the gloves they’re wearing are heavy and blacker than black. Tony feels dizzy trying to look at them, like all the light in the room is being pulled towards them.

“Good evening,” says Ducky with surprising calm considering how sour the room smells. Like old blood and soap. Other than that, it’s a normal room. Plush couches, thick carpeting, and another door leading off. A closet against one wall. Tony stares at that.

Oh no.

“Maester,” they murmur in voices like any others Tony’s heard. There’s nothing strange or otherworldly about their voices as they bow their heads in respect to him; their faces, unmasked and unhooded, normal people. Soccer moms and chubby dads, just a bunch of… well, average people. Average people who like mucking around with blood. None of them are as unsettlingly blank as the woman who’d led them here, not one.

A man steps forward, smiling kindly at Tony. “Are you ready?” he asks, offering his hand out to shake. “My name is Jack. I’ll be leading the ritual tonight, in order to show off the leaps and bounds my people have made!”

“Don’t make us look like newbies or anything, Jack,” a woman says, the group laughing along. Jack laughs with them, shaking his head in mock exasperation.

“Never mind them,” he says. “Tony, is it? Well, Tony, there’s really nothing to worry about. It’s a simple blood oath. Honestly, I could do it alone, but you know vampires. You guys love a show!” Another laugh and Tony chuckles along.

“We are unreasonably dramatic,” he says, every muscle tense. Does Gibbs know they’re out of contact? “It’s a species flaw, I’m afraid. We’re all born with buckets of flair.”

The woman who’d led them in has slipped past silently, placing her hand against the door leading to the next room. They all hear the lock click open.

“About time,” Jack teases her, his smile slipping a little, like he’s unnerved by her weird-ass blankness as well. “No idea why you’re being so secretive about that room, Ginevra. We could have just done it here, it takes—”

“Silence,” she says coldly.

Silence falls. The assembled people exchange worried looks.

Tony, standing beside Ducky, smells salt and sees Ducky’s eyes narrow, very slightly. So, he feels it too, same as Tony. There’s a creeping, sneaking kind of sense here… Gibbs would call it his gut.

Tony calls it _danger_.

The door opens and the necromancers stand back, letting the woman lead the way, Tony and Ducky following. As they pass through the door, they file after them.

This room isn’t anything like the last. It’s been stripped down. The walls are bare, the wallpaper gone. The floor is power-washed cement, cold even through Tony’s shoes. It’s completely empty.

Red lines decorate it from top to bottom. Tony slows, his gut kicking up a soft whine of _hungry_ along with the sense of fear that presses into him. The rune is huge and circles the entire room, slashed violently into the concrete and then painted in—no way to quickly break it. The smell of it pervades every inch of Tony’s nose: blood. It’s blood. Thick and old and burning. He wants to be as far away from it almost as much as he wants a taste of it.

“What the fuck,” Jack deadpans, coming to a stop beside Tony and staring around, his eyes huge. The others circle around behind him, slow murmurs stopping as they all look to him and shift uneasily upon seeing that he’s just as shocked as they are. “What the fuck is this?”

“Maester Harrow, would you like to educate them?” the woman asks, looking to Ducky and smiling.

Ducky, for a moment is silent. “Why, my dear,” he says finally, “it’s an absolutely spot on resurrection rune. You’ve done masterfully, exactly to my specifications. Look here, this binding arch is beautifully done.” He walks without concern into the circle, gesturing along a line to illustrate his point. “See how it traverses with this line, illustrating the intersectionality of the living and the dead—”

“Enough,” snaps the woman. The others are quiet. Tony glances back at the door. No Gibbs. No Ziva or Tim. Oh boy. “Tell them _why_. Tell them why they’re about to die.”

There’s an outcry from the others there, some raising their arms with dark magic glittering around their palms, some turning and going for the door, some just frozen in sheer shock. Tony plants himself in front of one stunned woman, ready to shove her back towards the door if an exodus is needed.

“Well, ah,” Ducky is trying, fumbling now. “Resurrection is typically for several reasons… power, most often. The power of tying a once-living soul to your magic cannot be overstated. It’s a rush like no other, the doubling of your reserves. Every necromancer should know that rush and be humbled by it, don’t you agree?”

“Who?” asks the woman, smiling now. Blankly.

The door to the room is opened and, for a heartbeat, Tony is relieved. The cavalry has… not arrived.

The newbies aren’t anything like the necromancers now beginning to cluster in a frightened huddle around Jack and Tony. Jack’s eyes are bulging, his arms thrown out to push as many of the people behind him back as he can, putting himself firmly between them and the people entering. The endless line of hooded, masked people walking in with the same, blank eyes watching them from behind those red masks.

“He doesn’t answer,” one hisses.

“He’s not one of us.”

“Not _Maester_.”

“Kill him with the others.”

Ducky draws himself up, standing straight, and there’s no sign of Harrow on his features now. He’s all Ducky, expression turning sharp and equine. “No one is dying today,” he says firmly. “You’d all do well to stand down. This place is entirely surrounded by federal agents.”

“And you’re all so under arrest, like you wouldn’t believe,” Tony announces, giving up the charade and stepping forward as well, drawing his weapon from the concealed holster under his suit jacket. “All of you, on the ground now. Hands where I can see them. Don’t make me sic him on you.”

“I wouldn’t,” says a voice Tony knows, his teeth grinding together as he recognises it. Turning with resignation, he finds Kort leaning against the doorway as the last hooded person glides in, gun aimed almost absently at Ducky. “Gun down, DiNozzo.”

“I’m a federal agent,” Tony grits out. “So are you, Kort. What the hell—”

“Do you really think that bullet will stop me?” Ducky says, the air around them rippling dangerously. “You have no idea what you’re facing. Stand down.”

“Let us go,” Jack says, his own hands moving with his own magic. Blue magic, not a sour red. Not even really a necromancer, not really. Tony’s gotta get them out of here. “Don’t make us fight you!”

But Kort ignores him, focusing on Ducky. “I know exactly what you are, fae beast… now, would I really come in here, knowing what you are, and _without_ a hollow-point iron bullet?”

Silence.

Tony puts the gun down. That bullet will kill Ducky in minutes, as it shatters on impact and drives iron throughout his body. There’ll be no saving him then.

“In the centre, vampire,” says the woman. “You, other demon, get _this_ one out. His blood will taint this working.”

Ducky doesn’t move. “Let me take them with me,” he says, nodding to the terrified cluster of barely-necromancers. “They don’t belong here. You don’t need them.”

“On the contrary,” says the woman, raising her hands. The ground under their feet begins to snarl—not any kind of noise a _ground_ should make, but more like a hungry animal—, the lines of the rune bubbling up and oozing in vicious tendrils to grasp at the people as Tony yells and tries to leap away from the ones grabbing for him, hand slapping up to press desperately at his earwig. Ducky is yelling too, his magic pushing out in a wave of humid air. Where it pushes down, the bubbling stops—but Tony loses sight of him as his foot skids back and he steps down: firmly in the centre without even being aware of doing so.

He blinks, looking down at the clear ground below his feet and, when he looks up, the room is silent. The circle of creepy masks are staring at him. He can’t tell which one is the woman anymore.

Ducky isn’t there. The door is closed.

“What the fuck?” Tony asks, because it had only been a second, right? Just a second to step away from the rune grabbing at him, nowhere near enough time for…

But, when he looks down, he finds nothing but the bloodied remains of the people sacrificed to the rune. Scraps of clothes and flesh and puddles of blood that are quickly and unnaturally crawling towards the rune, feeding it.

“Anthony DiNozzo,” says one of the masks in a monotone. “You’ll die now, for Echo’s glory.”

“For Echo’s glory,” chants the others.

Tony swallows.

“I guess I can’t just say no thanks?” he tries, but he’s cut off by them beginning to chant. Shit. Chanting is never good. When he tries to step out of the rune, he finds that he can’t, some invisible kind of barrier pushing back against him.

Around him, the rune begins to bubble.

“Gibbs?” he shouts, giving up on staying calm and lashing out at anything he can. “Now’s a good time to help!”

Something slams against the door. Muffled yelling slips through.

“Gibbs!” yells Tony again, but the rune surges up. The chanting stops, everything goes dark, and Tony is flung into the waiting nothing.


	9. Kate and the Long Way Back

It’s some uncertain time after the end. Kate has been waiting an unfathomably long time for something, she’s not really sure what, but she knows it’s coming soon. This place she’s in has long ceased to frighten her. It’s foggy and grim and broken, sure, but it’s not unwelcoming.

And she’s not alone anymore.

Faces she knows have been and gone, some stopping to speak to her, some passing unnoticed. Some double back and speak to her before their deaths. She has a long conversation with her mom before she was her mom, one that leaves them both feeling tired.

She wishes she was less for a long time after that.

Some faces surprise her. This is one of them.

Kate has spent what feels like an eternity on the paths of the dead when she looks up to find Tony walking towards her.

“Damnit, DiNozzo,” she says. “Who gave you permission to die?”

 

* * *

 

Tony isn’t really how she remembered him to be. For an uncomfortable time after walking up to her, he just stares and stares. More uncomfortably, he’s staring at her _face_.

“My tits are down there, Tony,” she teases, but he just swallows.

“Kate,” he husks out, taking two stumbling steps forward. He’s grabbed her before she registers what he’s doing; it’s an almost obscene feeling to be hugged here. Touch… touch isn’t something that happens on these paths. Especially like this, warm and real and desperate. “You’re here, you’re actually here…”

“And you’re dead,” she points out, returning the hug and trying to remember what crying feels like. But her eyes are dry, her heart continues not beating, and it’s very much like feeling nothing. The emotion on Tony’s features is completely alien to her, and that’s _fucked_. When she’d been alive, it had been her who’d felt, felt so _keenly_ she’d doubted her ability to do her job under the weight of it sometimes. But here she is, and here he is, and who’s the blank-faced monster now? Not Tony, as he steps back and wipes his eyes without meeting her gaze, trying to hide the tears she envies. “What happened?”

He just shrugs, sitting down with a thump on the side of the path. Nervously, she puts her hand on his shoulder—not just for comfort, but also to stop him from leaning back further onto the grassy verge. Leaving the path here isn’t exactly encouraged. “Broke too many Gibbs rules at once. Trusted a redhead, a woman…”

She punches him, earning a glare. “Hey.”

But he’s already looking around. “So, is this it? This is being dead? It’s kinda… boring, right? Just paths and fog and trees?”

“You get used to it.” That’s almost a lie. It’s not like _she’s_ gotten used to it, she’s just lost the ability to care. This place, this fog, it drains all the feeling from spirits, leaves them wandering until they vanish. Already, Tony’s tears are drying, his expression smoothing out. “I saw Tim, not that long ago. He lived. Maybe…”

“Maybe…”

But neither of them meet the other’s eyes.

They hear something approaching before they see it, both turning to stare down the foggy path as it hides whatever is coming. Kate isn’t worried. Either it’s another spirit and they’ll chat for a bit before it goes on its merry way, or it’s the Something that lurks in the dark parts of this place. And if it’s that Something, it’s not going to matter, because they’ll be vanished before it matters.

In the time before this, when she’d been a little less empty and a lot more emotional, she’d hid from the Something. She hadn’t wanted to vanish. Echo had helped her, showing her paths that weren’t rotten through with the dark that the Something liked to hide in…

Now? Kate shifts on her feet and wonders idly if they should run.

“Kate?”

Kate looks at him, at Tony, and says nothing. He reaches out, touching her hand—it’s not something he’d ever used to do, but it’s… comforting. She closes her fingers around his and, for a second, remembers living.

“Come on,” she tells him, leading him up the path and away as the fog behind them billows. “We don’t want that finding us.”

“What is that?” Tony asks.

She doesn’t answer.

She doesn’t know.

 

* * *

 

Echo finds them. Of course she does; Kate’s never lost her for long and it’s nice, having the dog around. Kate feels more when Echo is there. She appears as suddenly as she’d vanished, whuffing gently and laying her head on Kate’s knee. Tony is leaning on Kate’s other shoulder, eyes closed, chest moving gently. Asleep. Kate lets him sleep. He’ll stop it eventually, when his spirit realises that it doesn’t have a body to rest anymore.

But thinking of him dead hurts, so she stops that.

“Hi, Echo,” Kate says, patting the spaniel that’s probably a lot more than she appears. No other animals walk these paths, after all. Echo says they do, but Kate’s never seen one. Maybe she just doesn’t know how to look. “Where have you been?”

_“Waiting,”_ she answers.

“For what?”

Echo looks at Tony.

“Him?” Kate looks at him too, incredulous. “Why him? He’s just…” But he’s not, is he? Deep down inside her, she’s _shattered_ that he’s dead. He’s not just _anything_. He’s a friend and a vampire and a colleague and a really great guy and… oh God, _Gibbs_. She’s haunted by the idea of Gibbs finding his body…

Echo sits up, ears perked and muzzle twitching. _“Something is coming_.”

“For us?” It’s possible. Whatever the Something is, it likes the older souls best. When Kate had arrived here, they’d been everywhere. Souls dressed out of pages of her history books and classical artwork, souls from every conceivable period. Mostly, but not all, American. Now, with the rot taking over the paths moving faster and faster and the Something getting even better at following them… Kate’s only a few years dead, but that’s not going to keep her flying under its radar for long.

_“For him_.”

Great. There’s entirely too much DiNozzo in her afterlife. Kate’s certain that any hope of a peaceful limbo is gone now—nothing is ever peaceful with Tony around. Irritated and a little weirded out by the feeling—it’s not one she’s felt in a while—she shakes him awake.

“Wu?” he grunts, blinking at her stupidly. “Kate? Am I sl… oh.”

“Get up,” she instructs him. “We’re leaving. Follow the dog.”

Tony looks at Echo as he staggers upright, rubbing his eyes. “Palmer’s dog?” he asks, his turn to be incredulous now. “What… Echo…” And his expression clouds a little, turning thoughtful.

Ignoring that, Kate tugs him along after her, following the dog as she pads happily into the fog, plumy tail waving slowly.

 

* * *

 

“Where are we going?” Tony asks when what feels like an eternity has passed. Kate’s been mostly ignoring him, caught up in a slow drip-feed of _feeling_ that’s new and strange. Well, not new, but forgotten, anyway. She’s feeling scared of the fog and worried about Gibbs and sad for Tony and—

_“To show you something important,”_ Echo replies, coming to a fork in the path and taking the right one confidently. Down the left fork, Kate can see black. _“To show you what we’ve been keeping safe for you.”_

“For me?” Tony sounds stunned. Kate doesn’t blame him.

“She does that,” Kate tells him, nudging him with her shoulder and revelling a little in the touch. With every time they brush against each other, she feels a little more. “She walked me back through almost my entire fifth grade once…”

_“You were forgetting,”_ Echo says, pausing and looking back at them. _“That’s what goes wrong with most spirits here. They forget. It makes it easier to fade naturally, but neither of you are to fade yet. Not yet.”_

“Why not?” Tony’s the one who asks it, but Kate is wondering too—why is she still here, when so many other spirits have been taken or just plain faded… “And what the hell is that?” He’s pointing at a point off the path where Kate can see the rot creeping through the dirt and trees, vanishing everything it touches. Turning it into a midnight black of nothingness that she can’t look at for long without wanting to walk up and tip into.

_“It’s imbalance, propagated by those who sent you here. They cultivate it, in order to fulfil their own ends. The souls of the dead feed it.”_

Kate’s heard this before, so she doesn’t say anything, just edges nervously away from it.

Tony, however, looks grossed out. “So if I touch it, I’m gone forever?” he asks, staring at it.

_“No. It’s part of a larger spell, and not based in this world. Somewhere in your living world is the workings to create it—it’s why we can’t do anything here except flee from it and the creatures it summons. Only the living can destroy it, and those dead who stumble into it remain within it, feeding it eternally.”_

“Gross.” Despite his flippancy, Tony edges away from it too. “Hungry goo. No thanks. We’re keeping well away from that, then.”

_“I am. You’re not.”_

Okay, _that’s_ new.

“What?” Tony and Kate both ask, panic in both their voices. Kate continues: “You just said it would eat us!”

_“Here, yes. Yes, it will. But in the living world, no. There, it is fallible, if you know how to face it. And to face it, you need to know what’s coming. That’s why I ordered them to kill you, Anthony. You needed to come here, to see it, to know.”_

Tony is gaping. “For Echo,” he mutters, reeling. Kate just stares. “They… those… the necromancers are working for _you?”_

But the dog doesn’t look worried at all by Tony’s shock and anger, Kate’s own chest beginning to ache a bit as though something long forgotten is thumping to life and beating with anger. _“Not for me,”_ Echo says, turning away and padding off. _“They worship my kind thanks to my machinations with them, and only a select few. As it turned out, it was surprisingly difficult to earn their trust. If I had done my job more effectively, then what’s coming would not be as devastating… unfortunately, I was… distracted. It is hard to remember what happens here when in the mortal world, and friendship is diverting.”_ For a moment, Kate fancies, the dog looks sad. _“Still, I miss it.”_

“I don’t get it,” Tony snarls, rubbing his face furiously. “How am I supposed to help you if I’m _dead?”_

_“You’re not. Neither is Kate. That’s why I’m sending you both back, after we’re done.”_

“Done doing _what_?” Kate asks, still not sure whether she actually just heard what she thinks she just heard. Going back? _Alive?_ How long has it been? How… does she even want this?

_“Seeing what is and was and will be.”_

“Oh good,” Tony snaps sarcastically, glancing at Kate with his eyes huge. “I was worried it was going to be something bizarre.”

 

* * *

 

They keep walking until Echo leads them from the path and down a narrow, twisted corridor that sometimes feels like stone and sometimes like forest, with no discernible point where it had begun. Kate’s feeling pretty woozy by this point, a phantom heartbeat increasing in her chest with every step she takes and Tony’s soft breathing getting more audible as they go.

Echo stops. They do too, suddenly aware that, on the other side of the stone walls surrounding them, they can hear movement. Loud breathing, wet and raspy and from a multitude of mouths, like…

“Dogs,” Tony murmurs, staring at the wall. “Dozens.”

_“More,”_ says Echo. _“My kin. They wait to be released from this place, to restore the balance your people disturbed by locking us up here.”_

“Just saying, if someone locked a bunch of freaky-ass hounds up here,” Tony mutters, still staring at the wall, “it’s probably for a reason…”

Echo rolls her eyes at him.

_“Turn around,”_ she tells them finally, sitting down and closing her eyes. _“Look.”_

They turn, and they’re not in the stone corridor anymore.

 

* * *

 

It’s Tony, but he’s a child.

Kate steps closer to the adult Tony as he makes a low, pained noise and steps away from the toddler racing after his ball, a woman giving chase. “Mommy, no,” the kid protests, knees curling up as she scoops him up and swings him around. “Flying!” He’s laughing, so they clearly see his teeth. Small and straight and blunt: human.

Tony pulls back, expression going stone cold.

The toddler Tony has been released, running past them with another loud laugh, his mother chasing him, shouting, “Sammy!” When they turn to see where the kid is running, he’s sitting behind them. Older now, four or five maybe, and with his arms wrapped around his knees.

He talks to them.

“Hello, doggy,” he says, holding his hand out for Echo to lick. “Hello. Doggy said you’d be coming.”

“Oh my god,” says Kate, because this kid is Tony, and this kid is dead.

Tony is silent.

_“Look,”_ says Echo softly. They do.

They watch, all four of them, as Sammy’s mother is distracted for just a moment at a fair—distracted by a scream of _where’s my child, my Anna, she’s gone_. Distracted, and she lets go of Sammy’s hand. They watch as someone else is there, moving in quickly. In a heartbeat, Sammy’s gone. They watch as the fairground fades and it’s a bedroom now. Sammy is on the bed, scared and crying. Still human. For now, still human.

The door opens. Kate doesn’t recognise the men who walk in. Tony does.

“Dad,” he says, and then he turns away. “Stop it, Echo, _stop_. Don’t show the kid that…”

But Sammy doesn’t look frightened, he just picks at his shoes and watches impassively as he dies. And it _is_ a death. Kate watches the whole thing. Tony doesn’t.

“Your dad wasn’t the one who bit him,” she tells Tony only once, because he’s still not looking, and he needs to know that. It doesn’t make it any better—he still stood there and looked uneasy and ill as a child died, but he didn’t bite him. And now the room is empty, except for Sammy’s body growing cold on the bed. “How long does it take?”

“For what?” Tony answers, sitting very much like Sammy is now, with his back to the scene behind them and his face buried in his knees.

“For Sammy to come back.”

Tony looks at her then and then at the body staring with empty, dead eyes at the ceiling above. Alone. Kate doesn’t feel much beyond sad right now, but she knows that when she _does_ feel again, she’ll be furious about that the most—the fact that they left him alone. That Tony was, for all intents and purposes, born alone.

“He doesn’t,” Tony says coldly. On the bed, the body breathes with a rattling gasp, eyes that were blue now dark and layered with both what he had been and what he is now. Kate watches him sit up, staring blankly around with his mouth opened as he struggles to breathe, all the better to see the fangs. “That’s not him anymore…”

The door opens, and Tony’s dad returns, stopping when the child looks at him. “Oh,” he says softly, closing the door gently and leaning against it. “Hello, Tony.”

The adult Tony beside her finishes: “… that’s just a parasite.”

The hatred in his voice is damning.

 

* * *

 

Echo doesn’t stop there. She walks them back through all of it, with Tony holding Sammy’s hand and never once letting go. They see the other children taken, so many of them. Every one of them bitten: every one of them wakes up as someone new. Tabula rasa: they wake as blank slates. It’s a complete reset of the brain, leaving them half-grown and completely malleable. Kate shudders as she realises just what kind of damage could be done to a growing brain made suddenly blank, ready to reshape like clay into whatever they want of it…

They see that too. None of those taken children, kidnapped and turned into vampires, are spared. They watch the indoctrination, the care taken with them. As children they’re placed into a home and taken care of by a revolving door of adult vampires who never form attachments. They’re taught to hunt and hide and pretend to be normal. They’re taught to follow orders, blindly and without compunction. They’re taught to fight and never to stop, no matter how hurt they get.

Kate remembers how to cry while watching that. Tony just looks stunned.

When the children are older and blankly obedient, their appearance obscured by a rune set on their scalps shortly after being turned, they’re given to a family to raise. One of the old blood, loyal to their clan. And they wait. Sleeper agents made of kidnapped children.

And it happens to every turned child they see, in sets of twelve over endless years; all except one.

They begin the process with Tony. Kate watches. They set the rune into his scalp and activate it—a bizarre feeling from their side as the rune makes the child sitting there impossible to recognise. Despite looking at him and seeing the physical resemblance to the dead Sammy at Tony’s hip, Kate can’t put them together as the same person in her mind. Even if they were to pick that child up and give him back to his human parents, she doubts they’d recognise him while the rune is still in place.

They put him into the same home as the others and they begin to treat him just the same, until he’s just as quiet and withdrawn as the rest of them, but it stops there. Tony’s dad comes in one day, takes Tony by the hand, and leads him away. Far younger than any of the other children. And they see Tony sitting alone as a child in a bedroom, head still shaved and watching warily as a woman kneels in front of him. “Don’t worry, baby,” she says, reaching for him to touch before thinking better of it as he flinches away. “You’re never going back there.”

“He has to go eventually…” Tony’s dad says, hovering nervously by the door. “You know the rules, Mary. We can’t take him until he’s ten.”

The woman just bares her fangs. “That’s what they think,” she says to the child Tony, winking at him. “But your mama will stop them.”

For the first time, they see a flicker of emotion on his face, a slow smile. He bares his fangs back.

“That’s right, baby. We’ll fight them together.”

Kate looks at Tony, who just looks shocked. When she looks back, the bedroom is gone and Tony is older, fighting with kids from his clan who tell him he’s wrong. Different. Not like them.

Not loyal.

“Your mother’s a traitor and so are you!” they snarl.

It fades again and the world around them is blanketed in white, in snow. Two figures run through it, hand in hand. Kate winces as she recognises them.

“She ran away with you,” she says, watching Tony turn to look back at the house behind them. “How far did she get?” Tony doesn’t have to answer. The next shift is a funeral. It’s a flickering montage of too many moments, jumbled all together.

_“You’ve forgotten most of this,”_ Echo says to Tony as the vampire swallows hard at watching his mother’s body burn. _“That was the deal your father made. They wouldn’t take you from him following his wife’s death, so long as it was ensured that you didn’t remember. They knew you were too different from the others, that you’d been raised to be too real… it’s a lie, you know.”_

“What is?” Tony asks coldly.

Echo’s tail waves gently. _“That vampires who are made are soulless. It’s a lie. They’re not. Souls aren’t born, they’re created. That’s what their treatment of the child vampires is meant to stunt—the growth of a soul, to ensure that they are the perfect counter to my kind. We struggle to harm those who cannot truly die. You have a soul, Tony. Your mother ensured it, and this proves it. If you were as empty as those other children, you would never be leaving that circle. There’d be nothing left to send back—but you do, and you are, and you can reach them. All those broken children, now broken adults… they’ll recognise you. You can stop them. Their fates are not sealed.”_

“Those other children, the ones that didn’t…” Kate stalls out, unsure of how to word it and scared to try. “Why are they doing that? What are they making?”

It’s Tony who answers, cutting Echo off. “An army.”

Another shift and they’re older yet, lines of vampires moving down into a darkened place and waiting at the end. Waiting for something.

“What are they waiting for?” Tony asks, glancing down at Sammy, who just seems bored. “They’ve got them now, right? They must have hundreds if they’ve been doing this since I was a kid, even if they were only taking twelve kids a year.”

_“That’s what you need to know. That’s what you need to stop. Those who worship me have already began sabotaging their numbers as best they can, but that will end. They would have been arrested upon the casting of the rune today, which means any of the stolen children who remain are still in place to be activated when the necromancers—”_

“Necromancers?” Kate asks, jolting back to attention from trying to count the vampires assembling in the darkness. “Wait, I thought you were warning us about the _vampires?”_

“Oh god,” Tony says, his breath inhaling sharply. “Arms dealers. Benoit is an arms dealer. He’s selling us to the _necromancers_. We’re just _pawns_ , aren’t we? Pawns in some kind of… Mawher. Mikel Mawher.” He turns on Kate, who shrugs. That name means nothing to her. “Abby’s… someone, he’s a someone—a necromancer. He told us when we arrested him that we couldn’t stop him, that the necromancers would rise—is that what this is? The start of some war to take back over, using brainwashed vampires as some kind of weird-ass vanguard?”

_“Close,”_ Echo says. _“Very close. But the vampires aren’t to fight your people.”_

“Who are they to fight then?” Kate asks, brain ticking over that. A necromantic war… if they don’t stop that, so many people will die. And, for every person that dies, their power will be strengthened. “They’d be slaughtered against us, right? We’d just shoot them fill of silver. What’s the point of stealing so many kids, spending so much time on them, if they’re just going to be massacred…”

Everything fades and they’re back in the stone corridor, silence around them except for the sound of the dogs outside.

_“Us,”_ Echo says, baring her teeth in a snarl. _“They’re to fight us. When the necromancers begin their war, thousands will die and the Wild Hunt will ride again, summoned by those imbalanced deaths… and, when we ride, we will be met by a wave of creatures we cannot fight. Soulless vampires. Banes. Trapped spirits. And we will fall, and nothing will stand against them.”_

“So what the fuck do we do?” snarls Tony, wincing when Sammy looks up at him and widens his eyes at the shout. “I mean, what, we just go back and… tell people? They’re not going to listen to _me,_ you’re wrong about that…”

_“In theory.”_

Uh oh.

“How many people have you ever sent back like this?” Kate asks nervously, looking down at herself. If it’s been a while… wait, is she going to get stuck in her body? Does she _have_ a body? Does Tony? “We’re going to go back and be normal, aren’t we?”

Echo blinks. _“In theory,”_ she offers again, looking as sheepish as a dog can look. _“I, ah. I’ve never done it before. Not like this. Not sending so much back. And I don’t know if you’ll remember this clearly or not—it’s unlikely.”_

“Tim didn’t remember what happened to him over here,” Tony says, looking at her. “What’s the point if we don’t remember?”

But all Echo says is, _“Time is fluid_ ,” before closing her eyes. _“We’re sorry. We think this might hurt you.”_

“What—” Tony goes to ask, but the world drops out from under them. They fall to the sounds of dogs baying, three in a row, just like Kate remembers from a distant time past.

And, when she opens her eyes, she breathes.


	10. Tim and the Necromancers

It all goes wrong, of _course_ it goes wrong. When do things with Tony go right? Ten seconds after the coms go dark, Gibbs is already out of position and sprinting to the house with his weapon out, Tim and Ziva right behind him. And they slam right into a magical bubble that pushes them back out, refusing to let them into the house where Tony and Ducky are alone with a _lot_ of necromancers.

Damn.

“Get this wall down!” Gibbs roars at them, but they just look at each other. Fuck. None of them are spellcasters, and magical shields are _rare_. Rare enough that they’re not prepared for this, not at all.

Tim sighs. Sometimes, it’s good to be made of clay. Things hurt less.

“Step back,” he says grimly, reaching down to his sigil and turning his glamour off. There’s no point wearing it while he does what he needs to do—all that will happen is it’ll burn out anyway, and then he’ll either need to pay a fortune to get it fixed, or he’ll have to visit his dad. “I’m going to force it.”

Gibbs and Ziva, as a unit, take one step back.

Tim squints at the shield, bracing his legs. “Maybe step back a little further,” he suggests. “This thing is going to recoil like a bitch.”

It does.

Ouch.

But they make it through and into the house, where Tim hopes Tony is still being Tony, instead of the alternative, which is Tony being dead.

 

* * *

 

They slam into a room that pulsates with sickly magic to find Ducky already throwing everything he has at a heavy door that repels it all. The ME turns, his skin sweaty and expression haggard, to see them fanning out behind him. Shepard takes one look at the door and swears, seeing the scorch-marks of the runes Ducky is trying to smash through laced intricately across the steel.

“Tony’s through there, isn’t he?” she asks.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Ducky pants. “Sorry, Jethro. I tried to remain with him, but I’m afraid our CIA friend rather forced the issue. And _that_ is something I’d like to have a word about with his supervisor!”

“CIA?” Ziva asks, but Ducky doesn’t have a chance to answer. Gibbs has had it confirmed that Tony is through that door, which means that Gibbs’s sole purpose is now to be through those doors too. With a roar, he shifts, and the room they’re in is suddenly a lot smaller as a great wolf rears and slams into the door, claws grating on the steel and the supports in the wall screaming under his terrifying strength. For the first time Tim’s ever seen, he’s not shifted completely, and Tim can see humanoid muscles rippling in the arms that scrabble for a grip as he wrenches at the door and the entire wall groans.

“Be careful, Jethro,” Ducky adds, his form undulating once. Unlike them, he hasn’t backed away from the shock of the sudden werewolf. “The men and women within are dangerous, and the rune they’re working on is live. If any of you become cut, get out. Your very blood will turn against you.”

With that, Ducky changes too. Despite how shocking Gibbs is as a savagely manlike wolf, Ducky’s shift from genial doctor to vicious carnivorous horse with jet-black hooves is even more frightening. He whinnies with a call like a screech and spins on his front legs, back legs lashing at the hinges of the door. Despite his smaller size, the door buckles inward.

Tim sighs, his entire body already feeling hot and kind of melted from the push through the shield, but moving onto Gibbs’s other side and raising his arm anyway.

Tony owes him big for this.

He punches and the wall caves in.

 

* * *

 

Tony isn’t there. They break through into something completely unexpected. A ring of necromancers—expected—all on the ground with their hands above their heads—unexpected—and no Tony—definitely not expected. The rune is live, Tim can feel it buzzing under his feet, but quietening with every second that passes as they step in through the buckled wall, coated in drywall plaster with Gibbs’s fur now off-white, his teeth still stark against his black lips as he stalks in snarling with his tail raised high. Ducky lingers back, Shepard and Ziva gone to sweep the rest of the building.

“We submit to arrest,” says one of the necromancers, voice muffled by the floor. “We’re not resisting.”

“Where’s Anthony DiNozzo?” snaps Tim, seeing Gibbs turning his great head from side to side, ears swivelling and nostrils flaring as he tries to scent their man out. “The vampire who was just in here—where is he?”

“Gone to Echo,” the necromancers murmur as one.

Gone.

_Gone._

Tim lowers his weapon, feeling his kiln-fired heart sink. They’re too late. Tony’s gone.

Gibbs’s snarl sounds almost like a howl, twisting into a hoarse human shout as he collapses inward into his human shape and slams the necromancer down with his foot.

“You make him _ungone_ or I _end you_ ,” he says in a voice that’s just as much of a growl as if he’d stayed wolfish. There’s something deadly in his eyes, something wild.

Something that looks like the creature they’d pulled out of those pits, not the man he’s become since then.

“We can’t,” is the answer. “Echo has him now.”

Tim blinks, memory surging. “Ah, Gibbs,” he says, realising that maybe they’re not just crazily babbling. “Do they mean Echo as in _Palmer’s_ Echo?”

Gibbs’s stare is wilting.

“Already on it, Boss,” Tim says weakly, scampering back past Ziva and Shepard coming in, already pulling out his cell to call the man.

Great. Everything just got so much more complicated.

 

* * *

 

Tim’s pretty sure the only reason that the director lets Gibbs interrogate the leader of the arrested necromancers is because, before they’ve even got the lot of them handcuffed and into the line of waiting vehicles, they’re already talking—and, on the tip of every tongue there, is the VFD.

“I hope she does not think to try and steer the interrogation,” Ziva comments as her and Tim watch through the one-way mirror. Gibbs and Shepard are both in there, Shepard quietly reclining in the chair with her back to them while Gibbs paces dangerously behind the female necromancer. Behind Ziva, Palmer is propped up on five phonebooks on top of a chair, watching the interrogation with wide, horrified eyes and trying not to bring any attention to himself. “Tony is our priority.”

Tim shakes his head. “Sure, she knows that,” he points out. “He’s _her_ agent, remember? She basically poached him.”

Ziva wrinkles her nose. “It is a bit early to be making jokes, is it not? ‘Poached’ like an egg? Is that a pun on him being missing?”

“What if they can’t get him back?” Palmer squeaks suddenly, the first time he’d spoken since Gibbs had boldly picked him up and shoved him on top of that chair, telling him to ‘stay and don’t move until we know what your dog has done’. Tim is distracted from correcting Ziva by the misery in his voice as his long ears flick back worriedly. “Tony, I mean. Is this my fault?”

“No,” Ziva says sharply. “You did not know, did you?”

“No…”

“Then it is not your fault. We did not suspect such a trap. At the worst, we believed him at risk of dark magic, not…” They look at each other.

“Whatever happened in there,” Tim says unhelpfully. Because they don’t know, do they? That’s the one thing every one of those black magic weirdos are staying quiet about—whatever happened in that room. Tim’s starting to get the feeling that they don’t know either, which is probably more concerning, because that means they’re just… following orders mindlessly.

Whose orders?

It’s a fight not to look at Palmer as he thinks that, unwilling to make the poor gremlin any more nervous.

Inside the room, Gibbs has stopped pacing. “You’re looking at murder of a federal agent,” he says quietly, his voice no less treacherous for the gentle lie of it.

“Not without a body,” the necromancer responds pertly. They still don’t have a name—she’s not coming up on any database. “Technically, I’m up for ‘potential vanishing’ of a federal agent. Is that a crime? Incidentally, find a jury that would convict me for taking out a vampire… you won’t.”

Unlike the others, she’s cocky and cruel. Tim can see Ziva itching to have a go at her.

“Don’t think I need to,” Gibbs responds quietly. “Blood magic? Find a jury that wouldn’t convict. You’ll be stripped of your magic before the week is out. Magical lobotomy. Blank slate. _Neutered_.”

“Like a dog,” the necromancer comments, smiling as though she can feel Tim’s eyes on her. He shivers. She asks Shepard with a gesture to Gibbs: “Did you neuter him? You should. He seems bitey…” Shepard just tilts her head and keeps studying her without saying a word. “You’re quiet. You know, I’m willing to cooperate, if you ask me the right questions.”

“We hardly need you to,” Shepard says finally. “The rest of your cult are singing enough for you.”

“Oh, I know more than them. Echo trusts me the _most._ All of her communications come directly to me, I am the mouthpiece of a power much greater than you. You think you can threaten me with the removal of my powers? I don’t care. They’re nothing compared to the cause… that will only ensure that I’m still here to see them return to our world.”

“Who is ‘them’?” Gibbs asks.

“You don’t need to know that. You’re not asking the right _questions_.”

“Okay,” Shepard snaps, leaning forward, her body language suddenly pointed and fierce, like the fox hiding under her skin. “Here are some questions. Where is Agent DiNozzo?”

“Gone.”

“Why?”

“Echo willed it.”

Gibbs growls low in his chest, the sound rumbling. Tim wonders how close he is to losing control. “How’d you vanish him using a resurrection rune?”

“Resurrection runes go both ways, dog. They kill just as easily as anything else.”

“So, he’s dead?”

“He was already dead, or did you miss that he’s a bitten demon? A parasite walking in a child’s stolen body, just like the rest of them. Oh…” She pauses, finally looking at Gibbs as he stills. “You knew… but you weren’t _sure_ yet, were you? Well, be sure. I infected him with the BZ gas on purpose, to see. If he didn’t get sick, he wasn’t right. My instructions were to send Echo a very particular vampire—one who _could_ be sent, and one with free will. Not many of those these days, not anymore.”

“What does that mean?” Shepard asks, her voice a sharp hiss. “Aren’t your people working for the vampires?”

“Oh, see, _these_ are the right questions. No. No, we’re not. They think we are… do you really think that demon scum, DiNozzo, sent his son to us to die tonight? He sent him to give a blood oath, to declare his loyalty, just like the rest of them have. Already, panic spreads throughout their ranks. They realise that their masters are dead. They realise that the son is gone.”

“The son, Tony?” Gibbs’s voice is calm, his control back in place. Tim knows it’s a mask. “You tested him with the gas to make sure he was, what? Made? What would have happened to a born vampire if he had stepped into that circle tonight?”

“Nothing. The rune works on blood, fresh blood. Born vampires make none of their own and subside on the donations of others. As for why it had to be _him_ , I assume it is because he is a very strange creature… a made vampire with a _soul_. Don’t believe the old stories, all vampires have the potential for souls. It’s very difficult, in fact, to stop the growth of one. But they know how. With that knowledge, your VFD, they’re creating a soulless army the likes of which you cannot imagine.”

“The necromancers you killed tonight, to feed the rune… aren’t they your people?” Gibbs paces as he speaks, until he’s closer to Shepard then the necromancer, watching the necromancer’s face as she stares him down with her empty eyes.

“No. They work with the vampires to achieve their own goals. They’re fools. Uncuff me. Let me show you who _we_ work for, on whose orders our actions are guided by.”

“No,” Gibbs answers shortly. “How many in your cult?”

“Only those within the room when you arrived, and poor Harrow, wherever he is. Dead, I assume. We are all within your custody.”

That’s not right. Tim presses the button to transmit his voice to the receiver in Gibbs’s ear: “Boss, the Sunset necromancers—these guys confirmed, we’ve got some of their faces matched up to FBI files—there’s at least two hundred of them, not thirteen.”

“You’re not a part of the Sunsets?” Gibbs asks, Shepard’s expression showing surprise for a single heartbeat before smoothing out. “Who are you then?”

The necromancer grins, eyes finally showing some emotion—somehow, it doesn’t make her any more human. “We’re Echo’s Sunrise,” she says, the grin widening until it isn’t human anymore either. “And we’re the only thing standing between you people and the end of everything.”

 

* * *

 

When they walk into Abby’s lab after, Fornell is already there, and he looks _pissed_.

“Should have told me what you were doing,” he snaps. Abby is lingering by her monitors, looking worried and stressed. Tim doesn’t blame her—he’s feeling the same. “We had info you could have used to keep DiNutso alive.”

“He’s not dead yet,” Gibbs snaps. Tim winces. If this goes bad… well, at least with Kate they had a body to bury… “And it wasn’t my op. Didn’t have a choice.”

“Well, whoever’s op it was, they fucked up. Apologies for language. We’ve been after these idiots for months—we knew they were a subset, Gibbs. Sciuto, pull it up.”

Abby taps silently at her keyboard until an image fills the screen, a man with his back bared to show the tattoo inscribed there. A stylised hound, stag antlers emerging from behind its rearing form.

“Bet this is what our friend wanted to show you, Boss,” Tim points out, stepping closer to examine the image. “Is this Gaelic?”

“Yup,” Abby replies, mouth thin. “And you do _not_ want to know what two and two make here, Gibbs, because it’s not five and it’s actually a lot more like a whole wave of spiritual hounds who no magic can harm and their undead elfish huntsmen who can remove your soul with a touch.”

“The Wild Hunt,” Gibbs answers shortly.

Silence follows Abby’s nod.

“Just how much trouble are we in, Abs?”

“Welllll…” She pauses after trailing off the ‘l’. “Uh. Probably a lot. Because, the only thing I _do_ know about the Wild Hunt is that they, uh, can’t be stopped? If they want you dead, you die. That’s it.”

“We know they’ve been gone for centuries, long enough that information on them is scarce,” Fornell adds. “And we know that we _sent_ them away, because Sciuto is right about one thing, they have the ability to absolutely decimate us. There are stories of them sweeping through and leaving entire towns empty. Bodies everywhere, untouched, and not a single sword raised against them. Just dead, boom, like that. Man, animal, shifter, werewolf, you name it.”

Gibbs makes a low, angry noise, looking from one to the other. “Well?” he yells, half-turning on the spot before whirling back to face them. “What’s going on? Think! Why are necromancers trying to bring back the Wild Hunt? What the _hell_ is in it for them? And where’s _Tony?”_

“All we know is that they’re not lying—you nabbed every one of those bastards tonight,” Fornell says. “We didn’t know about the Hunt until Sciuto started running those tattoos, and none of them are talking yet about that. You going to let me have the leader now, by the way? You’re stepping on my damn toes, Gibbs.”

“You can have her when I’m _done_.”

“And when’s that?”

Gibbs stalks back to the elevator, all of the self-control Tim had seen him regaining before gone again. “When Tony is back, that’s when!” he snaps, the door shutting firmly behind him.

“Well,” Fornell breathes, shaking his head, “at least we solved one problem tonight.” They look at him, waiting for whatever it is—good news, Tim hopes, because his head is hurting from this mess and Abby looks like she’s about to cry. “We’ve got enough information from those assholes tonight that we’re moving in to take the VFD, all of it. Every last vampire. You have _no_ idea how many agencies are buzzing about this—we’ve been looking for proof to take those crooks down for years.”

“And are we to assist with this?” Ziva asks sweetly. “After all, they are linked with our missing agent, Farmell.”

“ _Fornell._ And I don’t know, David, ask your Director.”

Ziva twitches her head at Tim, a clear ‘follow me’. “Perhaps we will,” she says. As soon as they’re out of the room, she murmurs, “We need to get in the VFD raid. Whatever we’re missing, it is in there. I can feel it in my gut.”

“We’re missing _Tony,”_ Tim points out.

“Exactly.”

 

* * *

 

They find Gibbs in the observation room, staring in at the necromancer.

“Gibbs, we—” Tim begins, but he’s stopped by Ziva’s startled, “ _Palmer?”_

Jimmy Palmer is in the interrogation room, staring up bravely at the woman staring down at him.

“Gibbs, what the hel—”

“His dog,” Gibbs replies. “His lead.”

Tim closes his eyes for a moment, sure that he’s about to see Palmer torn apart. Kid will never be the same—he has about as much fortitude as a wet paper sack.

“Here,” Palmer is saying, holding out his phone with a trembling hand. “See? This is her. This is Echo.”

The woman stares, her expression awed. “You’ve spoken with her?”

“Uh…”

“Yes,” Gibbs barks into his receiver, Palmer visibly jumping with surprise. “Get her trust!”

“Yes. Yes, I’ve spoken with her. She’s um…” As they watch, Palmer’s shoulders straighten, and he tips his head up, mouth set in a stubborn line. “She’s glorious, isn’t she?”

“We bow before her,” the woman replies manically. “To be in her presence… how could you stand it?”

“You’ve never been with her before?” Palmer asks, almost looking at the mirror before stopping himself. “But, how does she instruct you if you’ve never met her?”

“Maester Harrow gave us spells and instructed us to walk the paths of the dead. There, we hear her voice, whispering to us. The spells, they’re not perfect. They do not get us all the way, just some. For so long, they were lost, but now the veil is growing weaker. The dead and the living blur. Those that you call Sunset, that’s their cause. They want to bring the veil down, immerse this world with the world of the dead—will you tell her that we sought to stop them, even if we fail?”

Palmer shrugs, looking lost.

“Stop them what?” Gibbs snaps.

“Stop them what?” Palmer parrots robotically, blinking fast. “Stop them bringing… bringing down the veil? What will that even _do?”_

“Oh, no, we don’t want to stop them bringing down the veil,” the necromancer answers, leaning closer and dropping her voice to a whisper they can hear anyway. “That’s already in place—that’s what will bring them back, you know. Once the dead walk among the living, the necromancers will be the most powerful of all, the most sought after… and there will be nothing holding the Wild Hunt back from sweeping the land once more. Glory unto all they touch.”

“I don’t, uh, I don’t… understand? If you’re not trying to stop them doing… that… what are you trying to stop? I mean, what’s Echo trying to get you to do, if this is so certain?”

“You don’t know…” The necromancer laughs, almost shrilly. “It’s chess, boy. A game of counters and move and countermoves. The Wild Hunt are the balance between the living and the dead, keeping them separate and in check—they do not hunt indiscriminately. Why do you think we gave ourselves up to be arrested? Your people will strip us of our necromantic magic and we will be safe, because they hunt those who endanger that balance. Necromancers, banes, soulless beasts… vampires, _demons_. A bloodbath, but not for _us_.”

“But the vampires are working with the necromancers?” gasps Palmer. “Why would they if the Hunt hunts _them?”_

“Oh, I doubt they know. So few know these days… and they’re pawns. Chess, remember? Their greed blinds them. But the knife cuts both ways… those the Hunt hunts are also those that can destroy it. Most vampires these days will be safe, they live such coddled, human lives. But those that the Sunsets have bought from the vampires, those stolen children? They will rise, a bitten army backed up by the necromantic creatures raised beside them, a wall to stop the balancing tide. Their soullessness will offer some protection from the Hunt. We tried to help… to skew the odds for Echo and her people. That gas, released among as many of the gathered bitten as we could, and we killed many… but many remain and there are others too, dark beasts lingering in the depths of DC.”

Gibbs slams out of the room, appearing in the interrogation room with his eyes wild. “A war?” he barks. “Is that what this is? No bullshit, _tell_ me. How do we stop this?”

“You don’t, not the Hunt returning. That’s already in place. The best you can do is ensure that the Hunt _survives_ because, trust me, Agent, if you’re going to pick an enemy to side with against what’s coming… it’s them. If they win, balance will be restored. There will be absolution for all sins… and your city won’t become the necromancers’ staging ground for an international war to regain validity.”

“And how do we do that?”

“Easy. Kill every vampire. And kill the dark ones as well… we made it easy for you.” There’s that smile again, cruel and cold. “You’re going after the VFD. Do that. Before we left to take your friend, we released one of their little secrets… if you survive destroying that, we might have a chance. _If.”_

Gibbs is already moving, grabbing Palmer and dragging him to the door as Tim and Ziva exchange horrified glances.

“Agent?” the woman calls, even though the door is already closed between them. “I mean it— _every_ vampire. You won’t know if they have souls or not, not until the moment they’re forced to prove it. You don’t know which ones will turn. And, if you miss too many… well, I’d say that death would be terrible, but living won’t be much better either.”

 

* * *

 

“She’s asking for a slaughter,” Gibbs says.

“We’re not giving her that.” Shepard and Fornell are faced off, everyone in the room sick with tension. Tim’s still half-wild with fear for Tony, his distant memories of that foggy place pressing down on him. Is that where Tony is now, trapped with whatever’s coming? “We don’t have a choice, Gibbs. The move on the VFD must happen tonight, before anything else. They’ll scatter otherwise—they’re already spooked.”

“We need to anyway,” Fornell adds, arms folded and face grim. “The recent wave of abductions—”

“Recent wave? We haven’t heard of a recent wave?” Tim doesn’t mean to interrupt, but it just keeps getting worse and worse with every minute, and—if the woman is right—they’re very quickly running out of time.

“You wouldn’t have. It’s been kept very, very quiet, for good reason. We knew it was a terrorist organisation, just not that it was… homegrown. They’ve slid under our radar for so long because they take children randomly. There’s been no notable rise in abduction rates—likely because they’ve been operating for so long, but also because they don’t take children with parents able to make continued waves. That’s changed. The recent wave was all from DC, and all from high-ranking political and military families. Three guesses why.”

“Meat shield,” Gibbs says, Ziva looking away quickly to hide her expression. “If there’s a war, they’re a distraction. Throwing our own kids at us… kids that no one wants to shoot. Turned and malleable.”

“Kids that have powerful people fighting to save them,” Fornell adds. “They’ll cause chaos right when we need unity.”

“Not every vampire is in on this, the logistics of that are impossible,” Shepard says, taking control of the situation as they reel from that knowledge. “The VFD is the core. Benoit runs multiple children’s charities—including as a shadow benefactor on a group home in DC.”

“How do you know that?” Fornell asks. “We didn’t know that. We should have known that?”

“You never paid attention to him like she did,” Gibbs answers, eyeing Shepard carefully. “Why would they keep the children in one place?”

“Why wouldn’t they? If Tony was one of them, they’ve been doing this for thirty years and we’ve never clued in before. One place is easy. Not every vampire is in on this—only those who have been normalised into it, those directly connected with the VFD. The more places they hide the children, the more people they need involved. But we’ve kicked the anthill—if we don’t move tonight, they’ll hide them. We lose.”

Gibbs is staring at her now. “You knew,” he says. “You _knew_ what happened to Tony.”

“I _suspected._ I never knew.”

“Did you even tell him what he might find when he went in there?”

Tim doesn’t know where to look, between the furious wolf and the disdainful fox, both staring each other down. He’s floored by this. To send Tony in there, _blind_ … that’s not how they work. It’s not how they’ve ever worked. And now he might be—

He swallows.

“He knew,” Shepard answers finally, looking almost defeated as she looks away from Gibbs first.

“Did he?” Gibbs asks softly. “Or did you just hope him finding out would piss him off enough that you could use him to take down The Frog?”

For that, she doesn’t answer. Gibbs just looks disgusted.

“Move out,” he says coldly to them, turning on his heel without another word to her. “I want the address of that group home. Unlike you, _Director_ , I’m not going to sit on my hands about this. We’re getting them out. Now.”


	11. Jeanne and the Lost Children

Ever since that night, nothing’s been right. Not her father, not her life, not even Tony. Jeanne feels lost, like the ground underneath her isn’t solid and unyielding anymore. Like there’s nothing stopping her from being flung into hell where she’s starting to suspect she belongs, along with her entire damned family. Damned in the biblical sense.

This isn’t what she became a doctor for.

“Now, _mon trésor,_ you know you took an oath?” her father says to her on _that_ night, right before taking her to a room filled with dying children. Dying _bitten_ children, although they’re not talking about that, are they? But Jeanne knows. Born children aren’t like this. They’re not this forgotten.

“Père, what is this?” she asks him. He doesn’t answer, just tells her to save as many as she can.

She can’t.

They die one by one in horrible pain and the only thing she’s thankful for is the end of those blank eyes. It’s the _only_ thing she’s thankful for anymore.

After that night, the world seems so much colder, and she knows that she’s alone.

“Poisoned,” she hears the other doctors help her confirm, their eyes grim. “An attack. But who?”

Who? She wants to ask the same question, but different: who the hell has been biting children? Why so many? Thirty-five children die that night. Another twelve adults. And they must all be bitten because she knows those symptoms… no born vampire would succumb to them. So how long has this been going on?

But she took an oath when she was ten years old. “We tell no one,” her father had told her as he’d led her into the room with the masked men. “Not even your mère.”

And it’s all just starting to make this terrible sense.

 

* * *

 

When Jeanne was fifteen, she’d discovered something bizarre. Some children were not born but given. This had seemed very strange to her.

“Why?” she’d asked her father.

He’d answered that some parents were chosen. Some were just special. “It is a very powerful thing to be gifted a child of another,” he tells her. “It is even more special to be the parent gifting the child. It is how we formalise our bonds as a clan, and a family, by the sharing of children. It takes a clan to raise a child, Jeanne.”

“Was I given to you?” she’d asked.

He’d laughed. “Non. No. My love, you were born to us, our dear heart. We pay our familial dues in other ways. But, this is the kind of thing you mustn’t talk about outside of the closest of friends. Only those who took the oath you did. Our people are hunted… this keeps them safe.”

And, in all Jeanne’s life, she’d never met a ‘gifted’ child, so she never really thought about it again.

Until now.

 

* * *

 

She’s ambitious. To be anything in a clan, to have any semblance of respect, it’s not enough to be an established doctor with years of study behind her. Her father is dismissive of her education and her work, amused by her ‘Americanised’ ways, and only barely interested in her love life.

Until Tony. Until she meets a member of a high-ranking clan, and stupidly falls in love. It’s her foot in the door of her family’s approval.

She should have known better. There’s nothing in this life she wants anymore.

After that night, she tries to talk to Tony about it—ask him why he looks so shaken like he’s been sick—but her throat closes, the words won’t come. _Remember, you took an oath,_ the memory of her father whispers. An oath like a trap, she’s starting to realise. Closing in on all the liars and the monsters around her, and she caught in the middle.

Tony stops coming over as often.

She stops returning her father’s calls.

She wants out. Wants away from this city and the memory of those dying kids. Wants out of the oath she was too young to properly consent to. Wants some kind of reassurance that her family isn’t rotten.

She goes looking for that reassurance and doesn’t find it. In all the books on vampire history and culture she reads, she finds no mention of the practice of ‘gifting’ children. It’s just not there. What is there is damning accounts of how evil it is to turn someone without consent, the damage it causes. She finds accounts of bitten vampires driven mad by the change, sometimes immediately, sometimes years after. She finds stories of the danger of a starving vampire—a born vampire starved dies; a bitten one goes mad.

She’d courted Tony, dated him, hoped to fall in love with him, all on a slim hope of finally finding the approval her family wants of her. A foot into the clan life she feels shut out of because to be clan is to have ‘duties’. To raise children for them, to maybe even be ‘gifted’ one… but that’s all a fucking _lie_ , isn’t it?

And all they tell her is: you took an oath.

Fuck her oath.

She’s not their pawn anymore.

 

* * *

 

“Is something wrong?” she asks Tony on this day. He’s finally having dinner with her, arriving late and looking harried, his focus shattered. In stark contrast, she’s never been sharper, working hard to appear normal and even simpering, anything to throw him off that she’s onto them. She wonders if he knows about the children, and her heart twists tight in her chest. God, that hurts. Looking at him now, the way he startles and looks at her all confused and half-smiling, she knows that she loves him. Whatever her reasoning for accepting his courtship, she loves him now and the idea that he might be a murderer with the rest of them is… horrifying. It’s so horrifying. Despite the pain this brings, she chokes out, “You’ve been weird since… well,” as he lowers his phone and looks at her.

And breaks her heart.

“What happened that night?” he asks quietly, leaning towards her. His eyes are intent: she can tell that he _knows._ There’s too much knowing in those eyes. Once again, she’s a fool in love with a monster. Just like her mother. Just like the rest of her life. “What aren’t you telling me…?”

So, she acts her part. The idiot.

“I’ll tell you soon,” is all she says. “I… Dad told me that you’re going to… well, he said I can talk to you soon, I promise. I’m not hiding anything from you that I won’t tell you soon.”

Despite how careful she’s being with her words, she still feels her throat tightening. The oath biting down: Tony will take it soon. Then he’ll be theirs. The difference is, he’s asking for it.

He wants this.

“This meeting I’m going to… did you go to one?” he asks her carefully.

She hates him at that moment; hates and loves him equally. Any hope she’d had, of running away and leaving this behind, it fades then. She can’t run. She’s the only person who knows enough to care. Everyone else just stood by and watched those stolen children die, and when they were dead, only cared enough to discuss the _impact._ What had been lost in terms of products, not lives.

 “We all do,” she replies coldly. Let him know that he’s in good hands. “It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt—there’s really no danger at all, and they won’t hide things from you anymore after—we’ll be a real couple. Part of the clan properly.”

_Be careful what you wish for, Tony,_ she thinks but doesn’t say.

And when he leaves that night, it’s the last time. She doesn’t ask him back. That’s okay; he doesn’t ask anyway. He’s got what he wanted.

A foot in the door.

 

* * *

 

She’s at work when the world ends, turning on the TV in the breakroom to find the news ticker with **Breaking** splashed across the bottom of the screen. **Raid on VFD Headquarters by FBI. Multiple Arrests Made.** She watches silently as the wavering footage from the news helicopter shows black-clothed SWAT officers moving in on every opening. She sees a magical shield going up around the facility, more mages and agents circling it. She wonders, distantly, if her father is there. She wonders, distantly, if Tony is.

She wonders if this has anything to do with the stolen children.

But the news changes. There’s a man on the screen being harassed by reporters. She recognises him as a high-ranking DoD official, a vampire. Far above the ranks of most of the VFD in the pecking order. And she unmutes the set just in time to hear the question: “Does this have anything to do with the allegations that DC vampires have been involved in the trafficking of abducted children?”

Her heart skips a bit, watching numbly as photos begin to flicker up. When she changes to another channel, the same thing. An anonymous tip had delivered a packet of information right after the news of the VFD raids had broken: in that packet, detailed information on abducted children going back almost forty years. There are photos. Names. Images from both before and after the abductions. She sees faces she recognises: children she now knows are dead. One is a senator’s son. Another, an ambassador’s daughter. The twin daughters of a judge.

The man they’re harassing denies it adamantly. “No one bites children,” he snaps, slamming a door between him and the reporters.

Jeanne turns the TV off, feeling nothing but fear. Whoever went to the media, they must have known what this would cause. The raid on VFD, high-ranking vampires closing ranks against the allegations… it’s natural behaviour to refuse to comment on something that they don’t understand yet. Understandable, even if they don’t know what Jeanne does. If they’re as blindsided by this information as everyone else.

But, from the outside looking in, dangerously suspicious.

The door slams open, her workmate rushing in. “Have you seen the news?” she gasps, staring at Jeanne. Behind her, the senior doctor on the ward is following, her own expression wary. “Jesus, that’s going to…” And she trails off, turning to look at their colleague.

“You’re going to need all-hands-on-deck,” Jeanne says numbly, digging her nails into her palm just to be sure that she can still feel at all. “You know what this is going to cause.”

“I’m very aware,” their senior doctor answers, her expression giving away how worried she is despite her careful words. “Jeanne, you should probably go. The types we’re likely to have in tonight if this becomes a witch-hunt…”

If. If it becomes a witch-hunt. Stolen, bitten children?

There’s not a vampire in DC not trying to get out of town tonight, Jeanne can guarantee that. In her pocket, her phone has been humming non-stop since the news broke.

“You need me,” she says weakly, knowing it’s not enough. “People are going to get hurt.”

“We don’t know how bad this is going to get,” is the answer. Jeanne can translate that: you’re in danger here, and we don’t know if we can protect you if they realise what you are. She’s the only vampire here. “Go home to your family.”

She goes.

 

* * *

 

It’s a good minute of standing in the doorway of her father’s office watching him hurriedly pack before he notices her there, her phone in her hand.

“Jeanne, thank God,” he says, standing straight and running his hands through his hair. “I need your help. Have you seen the news?”

She nods dizzily.

He darts forward, hands on her shoulders and his eyes fierce. She remembers being small and trusting him with everything. “Honey, they’re baseless accusations—baseless! Someone is trying to take down the VFD and we’re scapegoats. All of this is fabricated!”

“Is it though?” she asks quietly, earning a glare.

“Quiet! Not now. Right now, I need your assistance. Take this briefcase with you to the airfield. Do you have bags packed? No, don’t go home—just go. There’s a plane there waiting to take us to France, away from this until it settles down. We’ll buy you new things there.”

Jeanne takes the briefcase, noting the locks. “Why are we running if the accusations are baseless?” she asks, her voice wavering a little.

“Because the truth matters very little when emotions are high, and, tonight, emotions are going to be _very_ high. Everyone is in danger, everyone is fleeing—honestly, Jeanne, are you so simple to think that _everyone_ is in on, what? Some horrendous child-snatching scheme? Ridiculous.”

She swallows, hard, hugging the briefcase to her.

“You saw the children that night, Jeanne,” he continues. “That was them, attacking _us_. This is all a conspiracy to push us into the underworld with everything else hated—demons and necromancers and all manner of vile things.”

“Them?”

“The US government, those federal dogs. See how they set up their own for a fall first? You watch, the VFD will collapse and then they will come for every other vampire—we must be gone before that happens. You know that. When she smells smoke, the smartest witch runs—not waits until her toes are warm.”

“Yes.” The word falls heavy, her cell warm in the hand pressed against the case. “Yes, I understand. Père?”

“Jeanne, you must _go_ , now! I will follow, I have to make sure those who are vulnerable to what is coming are safe first.”

She nods, stepping back, but says it anyway, because some tiny, tiny part of her still wants her father to make this all better, knowing it will never be better: “Senior called me. Tony is missing. Something went wrong at the oath ceremony today.”

But her father doesn’t even pause. “Go, Jeanne!”

She goes.

Hasn’t she always done what she’s told?

 

* * *

 

Not today.

She drives until she can find somewhere secluded to park, and then she studies the runes on the briefcase. Stupid. Her father is stupid. He uses the same runes he always has to protect his secrets, runes she’d learned to pick past when she was eight and wanted to sneak a peek at her Christmas presents.

She does so today, opening the briefcase and pulling out what’s inside. Endless manila files overflowing with paperwork and photographs. Passports. More documents. Reams of monetary data, banking statements, written records of cash transactions. She ignores all that and tips the folders up, rifling through them until she finds something concrete in the small time she has left: something that will cement this choice she’s about to make.

Her family, or her suspicions?

Her life, or what’s right?

The oath will kill her.

But her family have killed others.

The documents blur in her eyes as she tips them up in a wild flurry of panicked paperwork, wiping her hazy vision clear with her sleeve and then focusing on what she’s found. The photo that catches her eye. The face of the photo. It’s a row of children. Twelve. The same age, all with the same clipped haircuts and same blank expressions. Twelve little soldiers lined up in a row.

She knows that one. That one little soldier, the one with the saddest eyes. Seven if he’s a day. And, when she picks up the photo and turns it over, there it is. The proof she needs: just a number. Each of those little soldiers has a number to designate them. Each of the folders in her lap does too. It doesn’t take her long to find that little soldier’s number, to open the folder, to find what she’s looking for.

Tony looks back out at her, cocky and real. His ID photo from his NCIS days, before he returned to them. And, behind that photo, him as a child. She recognises that empty stare: Tony was bitten. He was turned. She tips the folder up, finding more documents, more information she doesn’t have time for—and here, a missing person report.

His name was Samuel.

She’s not sure how long she sits there looking at that, wondering if he knows. Is this why he came back to the clan?

Is this why he left in the first place?

Finally, she moves. There’s a sign behind the group photo, fuzzy with age but still discernible. When she types that name— _Carrington Group Home—_ she finds that the place is still in operation.

She finds an address.

And she, once again, goes. This time, under no one’s orders.

 

* * *

 

Her father’s car is parked in the parking lot. The building is shut tight, every window closed, every shutter sealed. It stands out starkly. She watches it for the longest time, unsure if she’s strong enough for this confrontation. Finally, she realises that she is. Fuelled by anger and fear and a building fury stoked by the deaths of all those children, of Tony’s lost life, of every lie she’s ever lived, she gets out of her car with the photo of Tony in her hand and walks towards that car, slowing when she sees the shape in the driver’s seat. She hadn’t seen that from the street where she’d parked, as she slips through the gates and pauses, heart thudding.

“Père?” she calls, looking around at the silent street. This is vampire territory; no one moves. Everyone is hiding. “Dad?”

The shape in the front seat doesn’t move.

Maybe she knows before she walks over there. Some part of her does. The other part is distant, raw. Noting with detachment the exact amount of damage that had been done by whoever had stepped out from behind that wall and shot her father through the head as he’d pulled into park. She stares through the driver’s window: at the round hole in the windshield, at the glass peppering his lap, at his mildly startled stare. Just as empty as all those children now.

Half of her grieves. The other half holds that photo tightly.

And she knows: her life is over now.

Dazed, she turns her back on her father’s body and walks around the building, right to the front door. She rings the buzzer and, when there’s a squeaked, “Yes?” from the speaker, she says firmly, “I’m Jeanne Benoit. You know my father. Open the door.”

They do.

 

* * *

 

She asks to see his office. She doesn’t tell them that his body is cooling in the car outside. Because family is everything to these people, they don’t question her beyond asking for evidence of her validity. And they take her there, to an office in a building he’s never spoken of having a connection to. Down empty halls with no toys or life. No photos on the walls. If this is a children’s home, it is bizarrely devoid of actual children.

As though they’ve noticed her looking, they tell her that the children are upstairs, getting ready to flee. “We’ve opened the doors,” they add, these two nervous looking matrons who really don’t seem to want to be here. Jeanne watches them carefully, seeing fear and restlessness in every nervous twitch of their eyes. They want to run. Probably to their own families—they have no real care for this place, they’re just… fulfilling a duty. Because isn’t that what they’ve all been raised to believe?

“Where are the doors located?” Jeanne asks, giving none of her crushing grief away. It’s easier than expected. She doesn’t really feel anything but numb.

“The chapel. They lead to the boltholes, or so we’re told.”

Jeanne nods again. “Okay,” she says, and smiles. It’s the hardest smile she’s ever managed. “You can go then, both of you. I’ll take the children down there.”

They stare at her.

“Go,” she prompts, letting her smile slip and her father’s icy stare take its place. “Do I need to call him?”

“No, ma’am,” they blurt out. Just like that, they’re gone. For once, Jeanne is the one giving the orders. It’s a strange thing, using the power of her familial name. She waits until she hears the echo of the front doors closing behind them, safe in the knowledge that they’ll be going left—to the staff parking lot—not right, to where her father rots, and then she keeps walking. Past her father’s office and whatever misery lies within, up the stairs, down yet another hollow hallway, and into a long room lined with beds. Children stare at her, all silent. All empty.

“Hi,” she says, studying each and every face. She’s seen these faces, in the files in her car. She wonders if their families will take them now that they’re not who they were. “My name is Jeanne. I’m going to take you home.”

“We’re supposed to hide?” a girl asks, her voice hoarse, unused.

Jeanne doesn’t answer, just lifts her phone and looks at it, wondering who the hell to call. Not really all that surprised when her finger automatically hits speed dial two. Not one. That goes to her dad, who isn’t ever going to answer it again.

The line rings then connects. She takes a breath, and then lets herself hope: “Tony?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates will now be on Fridays instead of Wednesdays (which means two updates this week!). Halfway to the end now guys, not long to go!


	12. Ziva and the Ghost

Tony’s cell rings as they drive to the children’s home.

It is someone completely unexpected.

Jeanne Benoit does not question why they have his cell. Just confirms the address, confirms that she and the children are alone, and then promises to wait for them. The atmosphere in the van is tense.

“Boss, I don’t think she knew,” McGee says finally, breaking the quiet. “Why would she call us if she knew and was trying to hide it?”

“She didn’t call us,” is his short answer, the anger that Ziva is starting to be wary of still simmering hotly under his skin. “She called Tony.”

“She called someone who could _help_ ,” McGee presses. Ziva is impressed. McGee has shown something new this past day, something she has not seen from him much before. In shades, definitely, but never so clearly.

An iron backbone. He had not merely risen to the occasion back at the house where Tony had vanished, he had spectacularly overcome both obstacles thrown at them, even when Ziva could tell it was hurting him greatly to do so. And now? Faced with Gibbs in a temper? He still stands his ground and speaks his mind.

Tony’s absence from the team has done that, at least.

“This media leak isn’t going to do us any favours, anyway,” McGee says finally as Gibbs ignores him in favour of speeding up. Ziva is pleased. Cars are not made to amble politely, especially when the streets are this empty. “We could be looking at riots once it spreads and people start getting angry.”

“We’re definitely looking at riots,” Gibbs replies, expression grim. “Every cop in the city is on standby. But that’s not our problem—right now, we need to focus on getting those kids out of that house before the riots start. Any vampire-owned property is going to be a target.”

“Especially if they know children live there,” Ziva murmurs, shivering a little. She knows what happens when innocents are caught in the crossfire. She thinks, for a moment, of her dear Tali…

“And what do we do once we’ve moved the kids?” McGee asks.

“We go find Tony,” Gibbs answers, as though there is nothing else as important. “Leave the rest to the FBI. They want it, it’s theirs. We got bigger problems.”

Ziva does not think it will be that simple.

 

* * *

 

There is little they can do once they arrive at the home. Ducky is not far behind them, Ziva and McGee opening the gates to let his van in fast in order to pick up Benoit’s body. That had been another unexpected outcome: Ziva very much doubts that any of them were expecting that thread to end so abruptly.

They have been regulated to guards on the front of the premises, as the small waves of activity begin to gather attention. From the beginning of the removal of the children within those echoing halls, Gibbs had stressed that they would need to be several things: fast, quiet, discreet. No ambulances to remove the children, no marked vehicles beyond the two NCIS vans quickly moved out of sight into the closed staff parking lot. Ziva and McGee linger in the front yard, mostly obscured by the high walls and watching to make sure that the small crowd of curious onlookers does not grow. Pairs of plain-clothed FBI agents pass, each arriving in yet another unmarked SUV and taking with them three children each to medical facilities that they aren’t even alerting NCIS to the location of. Ziva watches them go and wonders about what the necromancer had said about each blank-faced child led placidly out: if summoned, is there something within each of those quiet children that will make them a danger? Will they strike for a cause they are so newly introduced to?

“It really makes you wonder about the nature of free will,” she muses out loud.

McGee shoots her a strange look. “No, it doesn’t,” he replies sharply. “We got them out. They’re safe. They’re not… brainwashed automatons, they’re just _kids_.”

It seems fitting he would feel that way. She does not remind him that without the _shem_ on his wrist, a mindless automaton would be exactly what he is.

Gibbs steps out beside them, silent as always. “Seventeen,” he says. “Records in there says there should be fifty-five.”

They take that in, Ziva’s heart sinking. She fears to ask the obvious question: could the missing children be the ones Tony believed he saw that night?

“Where’s Jeanne?” McGee asks, peering around Gibbs into the building. Gibbs continues looking past them, muttering something short under his breath. Ziva follows his gaze, spotting a car pulling up and a familiar red head appearing. The director. A complication.

“Inside.” Gibbs steps down and strides towards where Ducky and Palmer are working on the body, throwing back over his shoulder, “Get in there and watch Benoit, both of you. As soon as this place is clear, I want to be gone.”

“We are not even searching for evidence?” Ziva asks as they move inside to the room where Jeanne is sitting under FBI guard. “He is completely giving this over to the FBI?”

“I mean, it’s not really Navy,” McGee replies, hunching his shoulders unhappily. “There’s no real clear link between this and Tony. We’ve got no leg to stand on, beyond that being our body out there.”

“Hmm.” She does not know why, but this does not sit well with Ziva. They are investigators and they are _here_. Why are they not investigating? Panicking will not help Tony, wherever he is.

A flicker of movement catches her eye. When she looks, the hall is empty.

“Ziva?” McGee asks from the doorway.

“Go,” she tells him, following her instincts. Cheetahs hunt by movement—she does not doubt her eyes. “I will be there in a moment.”

He shrugs, slipping in and closing the door behind him. Aside from the heavy clomp of boots above her, she is alone to follow whatever she had just seen.

It is easier to be a cat for this. Shifting and slinking low to the ground, she moves silently up the hall, past a dining room, an office, what looks like a parlour, until she passes through an arched walkway and finds herself following her nose down a brightly lit hall with no windows. The air smells of incense and wood, a hint of burning matches, and she comes out in a chapel. Lines of pews that do not smell at all of being used. Cold, stone floor under her paws. She sniffs and smells nothing but, across the room, sees the door of a closet pull shut. She shifts back, striding over there and pulling the door open, one hand on her weapon and fully expecting a child.

Nothing. Just an empty closet. Frowning, Ziva studies the doorway, seeing nothing in the closet that is untoward. It appears to just be… normal?

Shaking her head, she closes the door, makes a mental note to ask the mages to check it over, and returns to McGee, finding him sitting beside Jeanne in the room they had left her in, a photo between them. Ziva steps up behind them, looking down at a child.

“’I guess he’s been with you guys all along, huh?” Jeanne is saying, staring at that photo. Ziva smells salt, uneasy with the idea that the woman may be crying. She does not handle overt emotions very well. “I didn’t know… I just… I didn’t know this had happened to him…”

“I don’t think he knew either,” McGee says inexplicably; it takes Ziva a moment to realise who they are talking about.

Tony. The child in the photo is Tony.

If there was any doubt that he was once one of those children… well. Ziva frowns at that thought. If he was one of them, indoctrinated just like them—what happens when the war the necromancer speaks of comes to pass? What will remain of his free will? After all, he is not born… and bitten vampires can be demonic.

She decides right then: if it turns out that the worst is true, that every soulless vampire is forced into action against them when the time comes that they must fight… and if Tony is still alive to fight, then she will take him. She will not allow Gibbs that pain.

Maybe, just maybe, she can reach him.

“Ziva?” McGee is looking at her, frowning as though he is reading her mind. She does not tell him what she is thinking: McGee will never understand her thinking. He has never had a loved one turn traitor. “Gibbs wants us back at NCIS ASAP. Ducky’s taken the body.”

Jeanne winces. Ziva nods.

“We better go then,” she says, casting one last look back up the hallway.

 

* * *

 

Ziva reaches the bullpen first, Gibbs and McGee signing Jeanne Benoit in at the security check-in downstairs. She is expecting a frenzy of movement when the elevator dings and she steps in, after all, the radio on the way back had begun to hint to pockets of unrest building and they had been diverted through no less than three roadblocks designed to break up traffic and avoid large congregations forming. Her mind when she walks in is on these things, as well as planning ahead to their next step—joining the raid on the VFD, which is ongoing and meeting resistance throughout. She knows that is where—

And, abruptly, she realises that the room is very, very silent. People are working, but in a hushed, shocked kind of way, their gazes constantly skittering back to… Ziva’s desk?

Ziva approaches, seeing people turn to look at her, standing to get a better look. What is going on? Even as she wonders that she sees the director appear on the stairs overhead, staring down with her expression absolutely stunned. Not looking at Ziva, but looking at the same point everyone else is, people grouping up behind her.

A woman is at Ziva’s desk. She turns to look at Ziva as she approaches. Ziva frowns. There is something familiar about her… but, when Ziva scents, there is nothing on the air but the usual smell of the bullpen. The elevator dings behind her, Gibbs and McGee appearing and reaching the same point that Ziva had before realising something is strange.

The woman stands, skirting the desk and coming out into view, her brown eyes locked on Gibbs. Ziva blinks. She is in an NCIS windbreaker, and McGee makes a strange, choked sound. Gibbs is silent, his scent turning sharp and shocked. Ziva looks at him, stunned to see his expression raw… open. Grief. Disbelief. Fear.

She looks again at the women, and then it clicks.

Caitlin Todd.

“Hi, Gibbs,” Kate says quietly, slinging her hands into her pockets and rocking back onto her heels uncertainly, the room silent enough that her voice echoes. “You’re late. Well, I guess… I guess I am, huh?” And she laughs nervously, the sound high-pitched and cracking.

McGee covers his mouth. Jeanne just looks from one person to another, clearly confused.

“Kate?” Gibbs finally rasps out, taking one unsteady step forward, and then another, reaching his hand out to brush her cheek. His fingers are trembling. That is… completely unnerving to see.

When his fingers brush her face, Ziva can see her skin shift with the touch. She has skin. Living skin. Fear strikes.

“Hi,” Kate says again. “I’d love to chat, but we have a problem.”

There is a muffled shriek behind them, a choked off sob. Abby, panting heavily, having clearly run up here as the news had filtered down. Kate glances at her, half a smile appearing and vanishing just as quickly, her expression distracted.

Gibbs does not answer, just does something completely shocking.

He hugs her. Drags her into his arms and pulls her close, his arms pulled so tight around her slim shoulders and what Ziva can see of his fingers white with how hard he is holding her, his nose buried in her hair. Scenting, Ziva can tell, and hurts to see; it is such an unconscious wolfish action of a pack mate to do to another that has been missed that she knows he did not consciously choose to do it, it is entirely his shock and grief driving him.

When they pull apart, he does not let go and Kate’s eyes are glassy. She stammers anyway. “T-Tony.” At her words, Gibbs goes still and silent, what little colour is left in his face draining away. “We need to help Tony.”

 

* * *

 

The riots break as they recover from their shock. They gather in MTAC with the screens around them showing video footage of the unrest as it grows and spills over. The district favoured by vampires burns. Ziva wonders distantly if Tony’s apartment is okay, although she doubts there is anything there he loves.

Kate stands by Director Shepard, watching the screens and looking tired and overwhelmed. Even as Ziva stands behind her, flicking her gaze from the screens to the dead woman come back to life, she thinks that she can see her edges fading, as though she is becoming unfocused. The light of the screen seems to shine through her.

Uneasy, Ziva sidles back. Spirits are not her forte, especially not ones who seem corporal one moment and incorporeal the next. She prefers that which are obviously alive or dead.

“Tony’s alive?” Gibbs asks without looking away from the screen.

“Yes. I don’t know where though. We… one moment, I’m dead and stuck in the fog, the next I’m breathing and it _hurts_ and everything around me is dark.” Kate huffs, looking surprised to do so like she is still adjusting to the air in her body once more. “Dark and… damp. It stunk. I mean, _stunk_. I guess probably because I haven’t smelled anything since I… well, it was bad anyway. Remember when Tony got kidnapped that time? In the sewers? Like a cleaner version of that.”

Gibbs nods slowly, relief written in the deep lines on his face. Some of the anger has faded. “But, he’s alive,” he repeats again. “We can go get him.”

“Yes…”

There is a ‘but’ in Kate’s voice, a lingering ‘um’. Ziva watches her carefully.

“But what, Todd?” Gibbs snaps, wincing at his tone. “Sorry.”

Did Gibbs just… _apologise?_

“Maybe if we die, Gibbs will be nicer to us,” Ziva quips in a whisper to McGee, who just frowns at her. Perhaps, too soon.

“How did you get here?” Ziva asks, Kate’s head snapping around to stare at her. It is the first time the ghost-spirit- _something_ has noted her, and they both look as unnerved as the other.

“I just…” Kate trails off, closing her eyes for a moment. “I can feel it? This place. It’s somewhere deep inside me… I can feel here, and my… I think it’s my parents? And I can feel each of you… and Tony. I can feel him. I don’t know where, or what he’s doing, but I think I can go to him if I try.”

“You tried to come here and you did?” The director says something softly to one of the data techs working the screens, that person standing and hurrying out. “And you think you can get back to him?”

“I didn’t try to come back here—I got scared and I think my brain just latched onto here as the first port of call.” Kate smiles weakly as she looks at Gibbs. “Guess being three years dead doesn’t stop me trusting you to get me out of shit, Gibbs.”

He does not answer, just swallows and meets her gaze steadily. “Why scared?” he asks finally. “Of being alive again?”

Kate shakes her head. “No,” she murmurs. “Tony… whatever they did to us, I think it hurt him.”

“Scared for him, or of him?” Ziva asks. This also earns her several glares, but it is pertinent they know. Beside her, McGee makes a shocked sound, his eyes wide and head snapping up to stare at Kate.

“Problem, McGee?”

“I, uh. Kate. Do you remember when I was, uh, dead? And with you?”

Kate nods slowly.

“What we saw… what Echo showed us. I forgot most of it, but I remember… I remember seeing Tony. It was Tony, in the dark, and he was…” McGee swallows hard, hard enough they all hear it and manages to choke out the word: “Terrible. Is… is that what you were scared of?”

Kate does not answer, just grits her teeth and says, “Does it matter? We need to find him before he hurts himself. Whatever it did to him, it’s _temporary.”_

Ziva is not so sure.

But they are interrupted by the tech returning, the probie who had been working with Tony scurrying behind him. “You asked to see me, ma’am?” he squeaks out, gaze leaping from one person to another nervously. “Uh, ASAP?”

“Agent Dorneget?” Shepard says, facing him and lifting her chin. “Will a camera on you travel with you through your conduits?”

“Uh, yes? I think so. I mean, not to Agent DiNozzo’s, if that’s where you want me to go. I already tried—that conduit is _fried_. I can’t hear a thing through it anymore. And if it’s a, uh, new one… you’d have to plug it in.”

Shepard turns to Kate: “Can you carry items with you when you step from place to place?”

There is silence as Kate seems to consider this, looking down at her hand as it reaches out to tap a coffee cup near her. “Maybe?” she murmurs. Gibbs tugs his cell out of his pocket, activating the screen and tossing it at her. Before it even touches her hands, it sparks and the screen goes dark. Sheepishly, she hands the cell back, Gibbs throwing it over to Dorneget.

Dorneget winces as he studies the phone. “I mean, I guess that’s why you called me and didn’t just put a camera on her, no offence, Miss, uh, Todd. Agent? Yeah. But like, you can’t just teleport from one place to another, it doesn’t work like that—you need to take, uh, steps. I step through my USBs, and data mostly survives that trip. A camera feed will, anyway, because my magic insulates it—and if you give her one of my USBs, that will survive it too, because it’s me and I don’t think whatever she does it going to kill me? Probably? But a laptop, nope.”

“Give her one,” Shepard says in the thoughtful quiet that follows. “Agent Todd—”

“Agent?” Kate asks, blinking.

“I don’t remember you quitting,” Gibbs answers roughly.

Shepard frowns at them both. “ _Agent_ Todd,” she says again. “Agent Dorneget is going to give you a USB device. Your priority on the other side is to find an outlet to insert it into—we need eyes on you, and we need eyes on Agent DiNozzo. As soon as we have that, we can work on getting you both out.”

“Okay,” Kate says, nodding firmly. “I can do that. Wow, first day back from the dead and I’m already back at work… Mom was right about me, I am overworked.”

This time, McGee laughs.

 

* * *

 

“We have a problem,” Ziva informs them upon returning from checking in on their necromantic friend in interrogation. “I asked her if she knew of any dark place within DC, figured they were likely to know all the nasty places.”

“And?” Gibbs asks, his voice terse. It has been over half an hour since Kate has vanished back to wherever DiNozzo is lost, and, so far, the screen on MTAC that is supposed to be receiving the video feed from Dorneget is showing nothing but static.

“And, judging from how much she laughed, I believe she knows.”

Gibbs turns on her, teeth clicking together as he struggles not to bare them with anger. “Why aren’t you down there finding out?!”

“Because she was not done. She told me that we may want to hurry.” Ziva pauses, waiting until they are all looking for her to continue. This is not good news. “The thing they told us that they had released? Well, wherever Tony is, it is down there with him. She said, and I quote, ‘All of the rats of this city shall burn along with it’.”

“Uh oh,” McGee says.

“Indeed,” Ziva agrees.

 

* * *

 

It is just over an hour when Shepard calls the team back to MTAC. As soon as they walk in there, they all know: the feed is live. It shows a dingy room with a narrow bank of computers, Dorneget turning in fast, nervous circles as he tries to take everything in at once.

“Slow down, Agent,” Shepard tells him. “Take your time.”

“Just how new is this guy?” McGee mutters. Ziva assumes he probably does not want an actual answer to that, both of them coming up to stand behind Gibbs as the wild turning on the feed slows and Dorneget stops to settle on Kate. She is watching him curiously, and she is more transparent than ever.

“She that see-through before?” Gibbs asks, frowning. “Fading?”

“I don’t know,” Shepard answers, looking around. None of them can offer any answers either—none of them knows what she is, or _how_ she is.

“Maybe this was a mistake,” Gibbs says quietly.

Ziva looks at him. “Are you doubting yourself?” she asks, ignoring his glare. “It is a solid plan. We risk very little and stand to gain Tony back. That does not sound like a mistake to me.”

“I mean, we’re risking _me_ ,” Dorneget’s voice mutters through the feed. He is following Kate back out into a narrow hallway, both of them pausing by a ladder leading down. “Oh boy. That looks…”

“Dark,” Kate answers, vanishing down the ladder. “Come on. You can see.”

“In the dark? I mean, a little, but not…” Dorneget falls quiet as he climbs down and stares at Kate. In the grim dark of the tunnels they have climbed down into, she is luminous. Her entire form gleams a white so sharp as to appear blue, the light throwing strange, hallowed shadows into the place they are in. “Whoa. That’s cool. Spooky, but cool.”

Kate is not listening. “He’s this way,” she says, jogging away with Dorneget scrambling to keep up.

“Why did she not get Tony to come with her to the computer bank?” Ziva asks as the feed follows the two agents winding deeper and deeper into the earth until even Kate’s glow seems to be muted by the absolute darkness.

But no one needs an answer, because it is very shortly after that that they find him.

 

* * *

 

It is a room. Kate pauses outside, looking at Dorneget.

“I’m not sure you can come in here,” she says. “Uh… he’s not alone.”

Dorneget looks around. “Boost me,” he demands, pointing up to a narrow runway of pipes above. They will definitely not take his weight, and Shepard opens her mouth to speak, but he has already shapeshifted. Suddenly, the feed is very low, Kate looming overhead as she crouches to pick him up.

“A rat?” she asks, before touching him. As soon as her hands close around him, the feed cuts. The screen goes dark.

Ziva tenses, feeling everyone tense with her. If they just lost them…

But it snaps back in, the screen clearing and showing nothing but pipes as he skitters along them to find a safe junction before peering down into the room below. All they can see is where Kate is edging nervously through prone figures: some standing, some lying down, some sitting with their heads bowed and no movement visible. Ziva cannot count them; although they stand like statues, Kate’s uneven light is not strong enough to throw their features into stark relief. None of them seem to notice her moving among them.

“What the hell is wrong with them?” someone asks from behind Ziva. They are all just staring, all shocked and alarmed by this strange sight. “Are they dead?”

It is not such a dumb question. If Ziva did not know better, she would believe that they are dead too—but she knows better.

“They are what happens when a turned vampire is left empty,” she says, silencing the room. “I think you will find they are the ones who could not be integrated into society when Benoit was done with them.”

“Oh my god,” someone else whispers, probably McGee.

“Are they dangerous?”

Dorneget’s paws slow as he hears that, looking around nervously. The camera feed jitters with him.

“In the right hands, absolutely,” Shepard answers. “Where’s Tony?”

But Kate has stopped by the wall, crouching by one of the figures. Ziva’s heart sinks, and she looks to Gibbs. It is going to destroy him, to see Tony as empty as the rest of them…

A feeling niggles at her: these vampires are static. That means they are fed. Who feeds them?

But Ned is climbing carefully down a pipe along the wall where Kate is sitting, getting low enough that he can hang over and get a clearer look at Tony. Tony, alive.

Somewhat.

Unlike the other vampires, he is not completely motionless. He looks up when Kate approaches, watches her, but there is no recognition in his eyes. Nothing familiar in his face. He is a ghastly blue colour—Ziva assumes white, but with the refraction of Kate’s luminosity off of him, it makes him look even more corpse-like. His lips are stark against his skin, his hair plastered to his sweaty forehead, and his hands tremble from where he is hugging his knees so tight to his chest that his nails are cutting through his trousers. Even from the awkward angle they are at, they can see his shuddering breathing and how black his eyes are.

“Tony?” Kate murmurs, touching his hand. He does not even seem to register the touch. “Come on. Get up. We have to go.”

Tony looks up at Dorneget, his eyes narrowing. They see his nostrils flare; his lips slip slightly open. Ziva notes his fangs and realises: “Tell Dorneget to get out of reach,” she warns them. “He is starving.”

“That’s not possible,” Gibbs argues, frustration flaring in Ziva’s gut at his tone. He needs to listen! “We only saw him earlier—it takes longer than that for starvation to kick in. Weeks.”

“We do not know what the necromancers’ spell did,” Ziva argues. “But look at him, Gibbs—he does not look like Tony right now, not the Tony we know. Would you rather find out when he attacks?”

“He’s not attacking Kate.”

“She is _dead_. _”_ Perhaps that is too harsh; Ziva feels cruel for saying it, but it is not _wrong._ “She has no blood for him to scent. Neither you nor I smelled her when we walked in—he cannot smell her right now either, and that is the only reason he is not moving.”

Dorneget moves fast then, scampering back up the pipes and racing back through to escape the room, Shepard barking at him to slow down before he slips into the silent mass. But, on the other side, he keeps going until he can climb down safely and change back, the feed flickering with him as he stands, human-formed once more. Kate appears, looking pissed.

“What the hell?” she snaps.

“He’s the only one like that, right?” he asks fast, almost rambling. “That hungry? I guess the only reason he’s not, like, attacking or hunting or going looking for food is that whatever brought you guys here hurt him a bit or something? Because vampires can go, like, nuts? And he looks vampirey, no offence, is that racist?”

“ _Ned_ ,” Kate and Shepard say as one.

“Sorry, sorry, anyway—so he’s probably the only one that will chase blood if he smells it? Because I could, you know…” His hands move in front of the feed, miming cutting his hand before he drops them back to his side and out of sight. “We lure him up and out, fast.”

“No,” Shepard says, talking over Gibbs. “That’s too dangerous. He’s faster and stronger than you, and we’re not risking you both for that. Leave him there, go above ground, and triangulate your position. We’ll come to you and get him out ourselves, as well as the rest of them. We can’t leave them down there like that, God knows how long they’ve been there…”

But Dorneget does not answer as Kate says, “Alright, come on.” Instead, he is frozen, looking down into the dark and breathing strangely. “Ned?”

“Do you smell that?” he asks, voice suddenly shrill. “I smell… oh god, oh god, I smell something bad…” There is a strange whine in his voice, and he is backing up as he speaks. On the edge of panic.

“I don’t?” Kate turns and looks down the hall. “I don’t even hear anything. Are you alright? You look scared.”

“What does it smell like?” Shepard asks. Dorneget does not answer. “Agent? Answer me! What does it smell like!”

There is a hollow thunk that echoes. A low sound of scraping. Slithering.

In the darkness, something whispers.

Dorneget turns and runs with a yelp of fear, right into the room filled with vampires, despite both Gibbs and Shepard yelling at him to stop, Kate darting after him. But it is too late—he is in and leaping through them, bouncing from vampire to vampire until he skids to a stop in front of Tony—Tony, who Ziva notes with a lurch of horror, is suddenly alert and looking very closely at him. “Come on!” screams Dorneget at Tony, “move! Come get me, now, all of you!” And he is running again, yelling at them to run, to flee, Kate joining in—

Ziva sees, as Dorneget whirls to see if he is following, Tony stand in one fluid, dangerous movement, and then stop. He looks at the doorway.

The doorway looks back. A wide, sunken eye appears from the black. There is, for a heartbeat, silence, before it slips into Kate’s flickering light as she appears between Tony and Dorneget, her hands outstretched.

It is a dragon or was one once. Now, it is dead. Something black and _alive_ flickers in its rotting jaws as it opens them.

Fire, Ziva realises. Even dead, the creature can still breathe fire.

So many people yell at once then that their voices drown each other out: it does not matter. There is nowhere for the people in that room to go. With a sound like fear itself, a sound that sinks deep into Ziva’s body and drives her to the ground with a yowl of fear, the creature screams and fills the room with purple flames, right before the feed goes black.

There is silence. Ziva finds herself curled small on the floor, her entire body rattled to its core. Whatever noise that monster had just made, it had overtaken any sense in her mind and turned her into a frightened child huddled waiting to die. Embarrassed and horrified and with the slow realisation of what she has just seen sinking in, she stands up fast, only to find that she is not the only one the creature’s scream has affected. Everyone else in the room is on the floor too, some standing now with shock showing on their features; some, like Gibbs, seemingly frozen.

McGee is the only one who has not moved.

“Tony,” he whispers, and it hits. The flames. The one door. The monster.

“Kate?” Gibbs rasps, sinking, somehow, even lower. But the feed stays black, and Ziva closes her eyes. They are not coming back. None of them.

Witchfire burns all.


	13. Gibbs and the Down Below

In the moment after, there’s silence.

In Gibbs’s mind, there’s the memory of a rooftop in May and something howling.

He’s done it again. Again and again and again. Over and over, he takes his team and puts them in peril; over and over, they die because of him. How many now? Kate? Dorneget? Tony? Kate, again?

He just got her back. She only just came _back_ , against all odds and possibly at the cost of Tony’s soul—they’re paying the price for something they only barely got to hold onto before it was gone _again_. And, in his chest and in his brain, the shattering fear of the Bane’s scream lingers.

A Bane. A living, animated Bane loose in DC. Impervious to magic with magic of its own and a scream that paralyses all that hear it with fear. A massacre. They can’t stop it. And, when the necromancer had talked about these creatures, she’d talked in the _plural._  That’s what gets him up off the floor, the weight of Tony and Kate and Ned trying to keep him down there. It’s that; if he doesn’t get up, so many people are going to die. He’s not going to let that happen, not anymore. Not if it costs him his life.

Besides, isn’t about his turn to take the bullet instead of standing behind his team as they fall one by one?

“How do we find where they were?” he asks the silent room, looking around at the gathered operatives all still trying to throw off even the muted effects of the Bane’s scream. “We need to stop that thing.”

“What _was_ that thing?” McGee asks. Out of all of them, he’s the only one that hasn’t dropped from fear.

“Bane,” Gibbs answers shortly. “Necromantic reanimation of a magical being. We’re going to need to throw everything we have at it to kill it.”

“Waiting until it comes aboveground is not an option,” Jenny orders, now standing and shaking off the fear as well. Doing her job. Nothing keeps her down for long. “If it comes aboveground, hundreds will die—and, beyond that, we need to know where it struck just then.” She pauses, breathing hard for a moment before continuing: “Those vampires deserve to be mourned, and our agents deserve to come home. We’re not leaving their remains down there.”

There it is. There’s no way they’re alive. They all saw Ned’s line of sight—they were standing directly in front of the flame. Witchfire would have scoured that room clean. No vampire, no imp, could withstand that. Kate? Maybe. But then, why isn’t she here?

“Okay, so we find them,” McGee answers. “Alright. Maybe… can we track Agent Dorneget’s USB device? They’re magically paired, so—”

“If he’s dead, an imp’s conduit dies with him,” Jenny says. “There’ll be nothing—”

There’s a _pop_ and coughing, guns suddenly out and converging on the ashen form of Ned Dorneget standing by the computer where a copy of his USB blinks dully. He’s pale, except where he’s smeared with ash, his eyes huge and form trembling like he’s barely clinging on to it. “I’m not dead,” he wheezes, sinking to the ground before turning to stare at the black screen overhead. “I think I shorted the camera out though, sorry.” There’s a moment where he stares at it and they can see the fear he’s still reeling from slip from his shoulders before it hits home. “Oh no. Oh god. T… Tony? He’s…”

Silence.

“I panicked,” he whispers finally, looking from one face to another as they lower their weapons and avoid his stare. Gibbs meets it. He’s got enough guilt for the both of them, it’d be hypocritical to look away. “I just… it screamed and I panicked and teleported back to my original file… I didn’t mean to.”

“You did the right thing,” Jenny says firmly. Out of all of them, she’s the first to realise what he needs; she walks forward and crouches by him. “You’re alive to take us back there, Ned. You _can_ take us back there, can’t you?”

“Yes,” says Ned, nodding firmly. “I can.”

“Grab your gear,” Gibbs tells McGee and Ziva, his two remaining team members watching him carefully for, what? Grief? No time for that. After. “Get Ducky. We’re going to bring him home.”

 

* * *

 

Before they go out there on one last ride as a team that still has Tony in it, Gibbs has one last stop.

“Your Bane just killed my agent,” he says when he walks into the room holding that necromancer. Letting nothing show, just stating the cold, hard, inescapable facts.

“Not my Bane,” she replies coolly. “And I warned you. It will burn this earth, unless you’re ready, and there’s so many more waiting to take its place.”

Stunned, he shakes his head at her. “We _can’t,”_ he snarls. “How do you kill an army of the undead?”

She doesn’t answer. He doubts she knows. There’s a reason they never let them get risen in the first place: they can throw everything they have at this creature and it will just keep on coming.

“If I survive this,” he warns her as he turns to leave, “I’m coming back for you.”

“Oh no, I’m scared. Going to fine me, Agent?”

“No.” He thinks of Tony burning. “I’m going to kill you.”

And he absolutely means it. If Tony’s dead, she deserves to be too.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs, for the first time, kicks Palmer over to the truck with McGee and Ziva, taking his place and sitting silently in the passenger seat of the ME van as Ducky drives.

“You mustn’t blame yourself, Jethro,” Ducky says finally, his mouth turned down into a frown that’s starting to look more at home on him than his smile does these days. “No one could have predicted today would go as it did… and Caitlin’s return…”

“She might be alive,” Gibbs says without believing it.

“Oh, I believe she is. Perhaps trapped and that is why she hasn’t returned to us. But, if she came home once, she will come home again, I am sure! I have a story to tell her when she does, one that’s three years overdue.”

Gibbs hums and doesn’t commit to answering any of that. He doesn’t ask how she’s even back at all because he feels sick wondering if Tony resurrected her. If he did, and now he’s dead, what’s that mean for his soul?

He doesn’t ask how they’re even going to tell what’s left of Tony compared to every other lost body down there.

Instead, he asks, “What do you know about Banes?” because Ducky has been around a damn long time and is far more capable than anyone ever gives him credit for.

“Oh, far too much. Far too much. And not enough. I remember a battlefield where one was raised once, the absolute destruction it wrecked on both sides. I remember it clearly because that was the first time I ever saw two opposing sides work together against a terrible threat—Jethro, you can’t imagine. There we are, lined up side by side with the French, working together. Then the beast fell and silence. Absolute silence… how does one turn against people who, moments ago, fought beside them?”

Gibbs looks at him, wondering, once again, just how damn old Ducky is if he was fighting the French. “Did they turn?” he asks, thinking of the necromancer’s warning: _kill every vampire._

Ducky looks tired and just says, “Yes. Banes are monstrous, they only desire death. But, on that day, I did wonder how we were so different…”

“Well, can we beat it?”

“We can certainly try.”

 

* * *

 

Ned leads them somewhere entirely unexpected. When they stand before the building looking in the silent gates, they’re silenced by the realisation of how close they were to their friends before the end. It’s another notch on Gibbs’s bedpost, yet another reason to be haunted.

They’re standing outside the group home where The Frog died.

And when Ned leads them inside and wanders around looking confused, sure that his conduit is below them somewhere, it’s Ziva who works it out. She’s the one who leads them to the chapel, the closet that’s out of place and that she’s sure she saw movement at. It’s McGee who works out that the closet is a rift door, and it’s one of the backup mages who activates it, revealing a sharp descent downward into darkness.

Down, down, down, into the depths of the unholy earth they’re led, by an imp who falls steadily quieter the deeper they go.

“I like being underground,” Gibbs hears him quietly telling McGee as they press down into the darkness. “I really do. Most of the shapes I learned are underground things—rats, badgers. Stuff like that. But this place? It’s…”

Wrong. This place is wrong. Gibbs can smell it. It stinks of the fresh reek of rot, a pulsating, clawing scent that oozes and bites. Under that, it smells of static nothingness. Dry bodies. Musty air. A world forgotten, sealed away. Left behind. Their footsteps echo and Gibbs resents the noise of their breathing.

Death is still waiting down here.

They find the level where some lights still flicker, the bank of computers with the conduit within. Ned takes it and slips it into his pocket. From there, they can follow his scent. Down the ladder. Along the narrow path. Gibbs smells the bodies before they find them. This entire level stinks of fire, of ash. Of cooking meat. Those vampires were bitten; they had bodies to burn.

The Bane isn’t here. They’d smell it before they heard it, and the halls are silent. They walk into that room aware that there’s no danger here except their own grief.

And here it is.

It’s harder to do their job when breathing air that tastes of ash and knowing they’re inhaling human remains. They have earpieces magically runed to silence all sound except their voices if activated, and they have masks to pull over their faces to filter out the deathly air, but Gibbs is sure he can still taste it on his tongue. An ashy, bitter aftertaste. Despite the room being nothing but blackened concrete and the crunchy leftover of whatever didn’t burn, the cremains of the dead, Gibbs unerringly walks over to the far wall where the buckled pipes show where he thinks Tony was standing. Thinks. He’ll never know. There’s nothing left to scent. Nothing to see.

Nothing to bury. Just more ash, coating his hands and his clothes and his skin.

And this. His foot nudges something. He crouches. Everything is slow. Stop-motion. He hears, as he picks it up and wipes the ash from the front, something howling far away. The rooftop in May. A sniper on a hilltop. The sound of his cell ringing. The man who told him his family was dead.

All of it. He hears, all of it. At once. And nothing.

It’s Tony’s VFD credentials. They’re warped. They’re partly melted. Whoever died upon them stopping them burning completely.

The ash on Gibbs’s skin is damning.

And then, he hears nothing but the tick tick tick of his steadily continued heartbeat as it begins to tick faster: tick tick tick ticktickticktickticktick. Blood rushing.

“Gibbs?” someone says distantly.

And even further away. Wolfish ears hear it. His fingers on the ID are trembling, furred. Senses sharper. Anger realer. The wolf within wants to be without.

He hears a distant roar.

“Gibbs!” It’s McGee, entering the room. “Ziva found a—”

But he doesn’t hear what, because he’s already shifted and shoved past. On four legs, they won’t catch him. He can outpace Ziva over long distances. Outpace McGee any day of the week. None of them can stop him.

He runs and he runs and he runs, until the darkness is complete and the only thing guiding him is the roar now coming from above.

Time for absolution.

 

* * *

 

This is the now.

The beast is aboveground. There’s not much Gibbs can do other than what he does. He alerts the team to his location, giving them the order to stay the hell away. No one dies here but him. He tells them he’ll hold it back until an airstrike team can come in, tells them to focus on evacuation. No one dies anymore at all, not while he’s alive to stop it. When he finds the Bane, it’s already waiting for him. He remembers the pits. And he doesn’t let himself be human. A wolf through and through, claw and fang and ferocity.

For Tony.

 

* * *

 

This is the after.

He leads it to the ports because water might do _something_. He’s bleeding and battered and broken, but still fighting. It hasn’t killed him yet and he can’t hear it scream. It’s stupid. Brainless. It just wants his death, and so that’s what he gives it. He jumps into the water and waits for it to follow so he can grab on tight and hope that it drowns before he does.

Maybe he’ll see them again if he fails.


	14. Tony and the Darkness

He’d thought that when he woke up from being dead, that that was as hungry as it was possible to be without dying.

He’d been wrong.

 

When he wakes in the darkness with Kate crouched over him, he knows who he is. He knows what he is. He knows a child died for this life. And the hunger is burning him from the inside out, so there’s one more thing he thinks he knows: if he ignores it, it will kill him.

All of this is a conscious choice.

Justice for Sammy, who deserved better.

 

When the Bane comes for him, it’s a relief. Good. It’ll be quicker than starving. This is also a conscious choice, as was the decision to ignore Ned and Kate and stay here with the rest of the walking dead. Kate and Ned don’t deserve to die, but he doesn’t know how to save them. He just watches blankly as the beast opens its mouth and he

 

doesn’t die.

 

When he blinks, he’s somewhere bright. The sun is overhead. There’s a hand on his arm, but it fades. Flickers. Vanishes. Gone. Just like him. There’s nothing conscious about what he does next.

All there is is hunger.

 

And a voice from far away, somewhere deep inside him. Crying a name like there’s no one else they need more than him right now. He knows that name. Even through the hunger, he recognises that name, and he recognises that voice. Kate. It’s Kate, calling for his help like she never had the chance to all those years ago, on that damned rooftop in May.

He goes.


	15. Kate and the Bane

She doesn’t know what she did. She’s never even sure if what she did is _enough;_ sure, they’re not down there being flame broiled, but Tony had screamed when she did whatever it was, and she’s not feeling so crash hot herself right now.

“Tony,” she wheezes, finding herself curled up small on the cement and feeling like she’s unspooling from the centre outwards. “I need help. Ow. Oh god, ow.”

Tony doesn’t answer, just makes a retching noise that turns into a snarl that chills her bones. It’s not just pain—there’s pain _in_ it, but that’s overshadowed violently by the raw danger that that sound invokes in her brain. If she has a brain. She’s not super sure what her body is anymore, because there’s a heart beating and the gritty ground below is biting into her palms, but it all feels very distant and unreal. She’d felt _alive,_ until she’d grabbed Tony’s arm and wanted them anywhere but where they were, trapped in the path of the dead dragon’s flames. Now, she feels dead. Torn through and gutted out, nothing but a shadow of a woman kneeling in the dirt and fading away.

For a second, when she manages to find the energy to look up at Tony, she sees foggy paths and the Something coming.

The next, she sees Tony buckled against a brick-lined wall vomiting nothing.

“Sorry,” she wheezes. It’s hard, the hardest thing she’s done since dying, but she staggers up. She got them into this. Time to get them out. They’re in a shitty alleyway, aboveground, finally. Which probably might not be such a good thing, she realises, when Tony looks up at her and his eyes are black all the way through. “Oh. _Oh._ Fuck. Ah. Tony?”

She can’t help backing away from him, even though she’s pretty sure she’s just a whisper in the bright sunlight. And she can feel what she’s done—the energy it had taken to move them _both_ so fast towards help, pulling from him as well as her; she’d taken energy from him that he already hadn’t had to give.

He doesn’t answer, just curls his hands around his stomach and _breathes_ like he’s struggling.

She steps towards him, desperate to help, but the alleyway flickers, and fades.

 

* * *

 

She’s on the foggy path again. “No!” she yells because she wasn’t ready to be dead again yet! She’s hasn’t even seen her family yet—her brothers, or her dad, or her sister, or… their kids would be older now, Kate wants to _see_ that. She wants to go to the ocean again and sit in Abby’s lab and— “Echo! Help! Put me the fuck back—I’m not done! I _barely_ got started!”

_“I would have thought being dead would have taught you to look after yourself,”_ Echo scolds, suddenly beside her with her paws on Kate’s knee. _“Stop pushing yourself—we put everything of you back down there, Kate. If you burn out, there’ll be nothing left of you to save.”_

Damn. Damn, blast, _fuck_. “How do I help him?” she asks the dog because there’s no point her going back if everyone she loves starts dying in short succession. Echo doesn’t answer, just leans closer—Kate feels the exact moment a wash of _something_ from the dog bolsters her flagging spirits. Suddenly, they’re back in the alleyway, Echo still against her and everything so much more real. Kate can smell the trash and feel the ground and knows that the world is alive around her.

She can hear too: she can hear screaming in the distance.

_“Don’t snarl at me,”_ Echo says firmly when Tony turns to look at her and bares his fangs warily. He’d been staring off in the direction of the screams as well. Kate’s pretty sure that’s a hunting kind of expression he’s wearing, and also pretty sure the only reason he hasn’t gotten up and left is that he doesn’t have the strength to move just yet. _“My bite is worse than yours.”_

“Can I go to Gibbs and bring him back here?” Kate asks her. “I think that’s what I was trying to do when I grabbed Tony, go to Gibbs…”

_“You never would have made it. Your strength accumulates the longer you’re here, if you’re anything like I am. Right now, you’re a puppy, and a puppy can’t move two people that far. You’d have killed you both, so be thankful you were dropped here.”_

“But is that where I was _going?_ I don’t know shit about what I can do, Echo! Can I help him?”

More screams. They all hear the tremendous crash of something big smashing to the ground, rending metal and shattering brick. It’s getting closer.

_“You don’t know where you are. I’m not sure you’ll be able to find him again if you leave—he doesn’t feel at all like Tony to me right now.”_

Echo isn’t wrong. Inside Kate, there are humming points of knowing. She knows where her family are, off to the west. She knows where Abby is, northeast of here. She knows that Tim is close, and Gibbs is closer. But, Tony? The point near her illusionary heart that, before, had been a conscious knowledge of Tony’s life? Right now, that’s quiet and all the man in front of her feels to her is hungry. That’s it. There’s very little else to him.

_“Don’t,”_ Echo snaps suddenly. Kate looks at Tony, who is snap-frozen, then she looks past him, to where he’s looking. The mouth of the alley where someone has just run in: a teenager with terrified eyes and blood on his hands from where he’s tripped. _“Get out. Leave here!”_

“Help,” the boy whimpers, looking at Tony and not the dog or Kate beside her. “There’s something out there, man. It’s coming this way—can’t you feel it? We have to run!”

Kate focuses.

She can feel it. It feels like the Something. And it’s coming closer.

But Tony just uncurls from the wall and takes a single step forward, and she decides the Something isn’t anywhere near as dangerous as him right now.

_“Kate,”_ she hears Echo say reprovingly as she lunges forward, grabs Tony’s arm, and tries to think of Gibbs as men in army fatigues run past the mouth of the alley, one of them walking in to call out to them to _come on, we’re evacuating—_

 

* * *

 

Is she dead? She thinks she might be.

“Ow,” she moans, digging her fingers into the ground below her and feeling wood splinters bite into her skin. “Oh. Alive. Ish. Okay.”

A wet nose shoves against her ear, Echo licking her face. _“Wake up.”_ Kate does, blinking at the dusty sunlight streaming in through boarded-up windows. They’re in some kind of shitty, abandoned apartment complex, the doors gone and trash heaped in every corner. _“Kate.”_

“M’awake…” Kate rolls, feeling her other hand still closed tight around something cold and unyielding. Towards that she turns, finding Tony unconscious beside her. “Did I kill him?” In her chest, her heart slows, far beyond what a living heart would do. She’s starting to think that maybe she’s forgotten how a real heart works and that this is just some kind of false sensation she’s imagining to make herself feel better about being the living dead.

_“Almost.”_

“Okay.” She slowly drags herself upright to her knees, using him to lean on and only apologising a little. Standing doesn’t feel like it’s going to happen. “Okay. Can you give me some strength? You did before—just a little bit more.”

_“If you move him again, you **will** kill him.”_

“I’m not going to move _him_.” They’re not far from where they were. Kate can still hear screams, although faded now. The gunfire is closer, and she was trying to get to Gibbs—that means she’s even closer to him. He’ll know what to do. He _always_ knows what to do. “I’m going to my team.”

Echo studies her for a moment, tail curled around her legs as she sits neatly. Kate notes with trepidation that she casts no shadow, despite the fact that she’s sitting directly in a dusty beam of light from a broken window. Finally, _“Okay. Come here.”_

Kate gladly takes the strength that Echo gives, feeling the world snap back to focus around her. She’s aware of Tony now—his quickly fading presence—and, even better, she’s aware of Gibbs. He’s so, so close, but there’s something between him and her. The Something presence. The dead dragon, she thinks, and isn’t sure if she can get past it to get to Gibbs without it disrupting her path again.

But she has to try.

“Look after him?” she asks Echo, mouth dry with fear. “You know, without him, uh, eating you.”

_“He will not ‘eat’ me. I am a fae hound. My blood would burn him from the inside out.”_

Kate stares.

Echo rolls her eyes, padding over and flopping on top of Tony with her ears low and tail thumping twice. _“Go. I will look after him. No one will come near us while I am here.”_

Kate goes.

 

* * *

 

She sees a flicker of Gibbs as a great, silver wolf running from a creature that ignores the bullets slamming into its impervious hide from the soldiers around them, focused entirely on hunting him down. The beast is fast, but Gibbs is faster, and Kate screams as the dragon looses a spurt of black flame that misses Gibbs by a mile as the wolf leaps out of the way and snarls a challenge.

The dragon roars and Kate

finds herself back in the room with Echo looking at her. “Fuck!” Kate yells, frustrated and terrified for no good reason.

She tries again.

“Gibbs!” she yells, but the wolf has already sprinted away, the dragon flapping rotting wings in order to give chase. He’s going to be killed. How long can he keep ducking and weaving to avoid those teeth and talons and flames? Kate stares after him helplessly, the smell of salt strong in her nose. Salt… they must be near a port.

She flickers back to the room. “Tony, wake up!” she breathes, crouching by him and checking for a pulse that she isn’t even sure he needs. “Gibbs needs you, _now._ You’re the only one of us that’s as fast as he is—that thing will rip him apart.”

Echo just watches, eyes woeful. Under her, Tony looks… better, somehow. There’s colour on his face, the barest hint. She thinks maybe Echo is helping him.

Kate closes her eyes. This is too much. For an eternity, she’s been dead without having to worry about things like surviving to go home. And, now, she’s torn with fear for Tony _and_ Gibbs and with no good way to—

Oh.

She should know by now not to discount Tim.

“Round three,” she says and goes towards the part of her heart that’s made of clay.

 

* * *

 

Tim is with her replacement, both of them still low in the tunnels.

Neither of them alone.

There’s a child with them. Kate opens her eyes and looks to find Ziva sitting down with a child huddled in her lap, the blank-eyed listless shape of the kid painfully familiar from the memories Echo had shown them. Freshly bitten. Despite that, Kate notes that her tiny hand is wrapped around Ziva’s and she’s hanging on tight. A small part of her wonders: just how empty are the empty children? There has to be _something,_ right? When did Tony become Tony, instead of just a hollow shell?

“We need to get her out of here,” Tim is arguing, his expression tense and shoulders stiff. “She’s in danger down here.”

“She is in danger up there too,” Ziva says firmly, holding the girl tight. Kate watches the way the woman curls around her prize and remembers that Ziva David is a cat—it’s impossible to not see the similarities between Ziva right now with her eyes glittering protectively and the way a mama cat guards her precious litter. “You heard. The hospital they took the children to was attacked—and, if you have not been paying attention, McGee, there is a Bane directly above us. She is safe with us.”

“Gibbs—”

“Told us to _stay_.” Ziva’s eyes flicker past Tim, suddenly zeroing in on Kate and widening a little. “McGee. _Tim.”_

“Since when have we listened? I mean, I always listen to him, but you and Tony never do—why are you listening now when he’s _wrong?_ He’s upset that Tony is—”

“In trouble,” Kate says.

Tim whirls with shocking speed for someone as heavy as he is, staring at her. “Kate,” he breathes, some great weight visibly falling from his broad shoulders. “You’re… okay.”

“We got away,” Kate says, saving the ‘how’ for later. “But we need help—Gibbs is facing that thing down _alone,_ and Tony is starving. Bad. I think maybe dying.”

“He was starving before,” Ziva says, looking down at the child.

“He’s worse now. Far, far worse. I don’t even know if we can move him…”

“Right.” It’s Tim who takes charge, and that’s a little surprising to Kate—she thinks that maybe she’s been dead too long. Something has changed here. The man who stands and takes control, who tells Ziva what to do—Ziva _listening_ —is not the shy probie Kate had known when she’d died. “Gibbs went up there knowing what he’s up against, he’ll be okay for now. He’s fought things that are just as tough.”

“Has he?” Kate asks. “That thing is _big.”_

“That thing is dead,” Tim says, expression firm. “It’s dead and stupid. Banes don’t have brains, they just want to kill. He’s smarter than it—he survived months in a fighting ring, Kate. After you died, he was taken, and he _lived._ If he can survive a manticore, he can survive that thing in the time it takes us to get to Tony before he hurts someone, or himself.”

There’s a soft sound from Ziva, something dark passing over her features. Kate looks at her, but the woman says nothing. Whatever she’s realised, she keeps it close.

“The child…” is all she says.

“I’ll take her,” says a voice from behind them. They turn to find Ducky there, the mask he’s wearing pushed low and hanging around his neck. “I think Abigail has a lovely selection of things that a little girl will love to see, and there is nowhere safer right now than NCIS.”

“Ducky…” Kate murmurs, heart thudding a little at seeing him. God, how she’s missed him too.

Ducky smiles fondly at her as he walks past to collect the girl from Ziva’s arms. “Soon, Caitlin,” he says. “We’ll catch up soon. I have a story for you.”

And, as he walks away, Kate hears bells.

“Right, where’s Tony?” asks Tim.

Kate goes to answer, but something slams hard into her chest, some terrifying, sucking fear and, before she can say anything—seeing Tim’s expression turning stunned and aching as though he feels it too—she’s dragged away.

“No!” she screams, expecting Echo and Tony to be in front of her when she opens her eyes again. “I was getting he—”

It’s not Tony. It’s not Echo.

As she watches, Gibbs avoids a swipe from the dead dragon by flinging himself off the side of a wharf and plunging into the waves below, gone from sight in an instant.

But the monster follows.

Kate screams.

 

* * *

 

When the dragon bursts out of the water and Gibbs doesn’t, Kate can’t do anything. She’s not corporal enough to go in there and pull him out; she’s not incorporeal enough to slip under those choppy waves easily while she’s as tired as she is. She doesn’t know if he’s drowned or been killed; she doesn’t know what’s under there to be saved. But the part of her that she now _knows_ leads her to Gibbs aches horribly. Surely, that must mean he’s alive to be hurt?

She does something she’s never done before. Kate, in all of her life and all of her death, has never begged. Never. Too much to prove.

Not anymore.

She closes her eyes and _needs_ , stupidly wishing for a moment that anything, anyone, could come along and help her right now, even as she opens them and leaps from the wharf to furiously find herself atop the water with no way of slipping under the waves. It’s like a wall, a wet, frustrating wall, and she screams with anger and thinks herself back on solid ground again, looking down into the relentless blue. What does it matter if she pulls him out _now?_ She hasn’t got any breath to give him.

_“Kate.”_

She whirls, heart slamming once and stopping.

Tony is behind her, watching her impassively. Eyes blank and expression blanker. Echo by his side.

“Did I call you?” she asks the dog, her brain catching up with what’s happening. Help is here. “Get in there! Pull him out!”

Echo pads forward, looking into the water. _“I can’t,”_ she answers. _“I’m too small.”_

What?

No!

“I called you!” Kate begs the dog, hating the terror and the misery in her voice. How is she going to tell Gibbs that she never blamed him for her death if he _drowns_ , and he’s already been down there so long… “Why would I have called you if you can’t help?!”

_“You didn’t call me. I’m not linked to you. You called **him**.”_

As one, they look at Tony.

“Tony.” Kate staggers towards him, grabbing his shirt and shaking him once, seeing something flicker deep in those eyes that aren’t so unfamiliar up close. “ _Tony._ Look at me—I called you here, right? I needed you, so you came. That means that you’re still _you_. Deep inside you right now, the asshole I worked with is still in there, quoting movies and being a total pig about women—and that asshole loves Gibbs and needs to help him, right now. Do you understand me?”

Tony just looks at her, his eyes narrowing a little. A whisper of thought.

“Choose,” she hisses, gripping tighter. “Choose, right now. Are you what they tried to make you—an empty shell good for nothing but killing—or are you what _he_ tried to make of you? Look at me!”

He does now. Actually looks. Properly looks.

“You were never Gibbs’s pet vampire,” she tells her, something she’s regretted not telling him since the day she died and realised she’d never have the chance. “People call you that, but you’re not and never have been. You’re Gibbs’s _friend._ He trusts you, Tony. If it was you down there, he’d save your ass and then headslap you five ways to Sunday for daring to almost die. But if you let him go, if you give in to what you _think_ you are, you’re betraying that trust—and you’re betraying him. Choose!”

“Kate!” comes a shout, and Kate lets go of Tony and steps around him to find McGee skidding to a stop, a cheetah beside him that bristles at the sight of Tony. “Where’s Gibbs?”

Oh, thank god.

Kate opens her mouth to tell him and hears a splash.

When she turns, Tony is gone.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs is silent and cold when Tony surfaces with him, dragging him to the edge of the wharf and pushing him up for McGee to pull ashore. Ziva takes him immediately, beginning CPR as McGee drags Tony out too, water streaming around him and his hair flat to his head.

“Move to his mouth,” Tony rasps to Ziva, shuffling up beside her. “I’ll do compressions. I’m stronger.”

“McGee is stronger than you,” Ziva shoots back, moving despite this to continue rescue breaths.

“Do you want him breathing or crushed?”

And the next few minutes are silent except for the two team members working hard over their leader’s silent body, neither of them having to speak as they communicate without a word. Kate watches, feeling nothing but tired, unable to be scared or hopeful or hurt, just numb. Tim slips his arm around her, and they wait. Sirens howl distantly. There are helicopters nearby. Gunfire. No more screams, thankfully. And the quiet lap of the waves below.

Gibbs coughs, Ziva catching him and turning him on his side as Tony crumples back onto the ground, folding into himself as laying with his head bowed over his knees, completely spent.

Thankful, Kate closes her eyes and savours this moment.

“I felt you,” McGee says suddenly in a soft voice just for her. “That’s how we found you… I could feel how scared you were, and where.”

Startled, she looks at him. It works both ways? But she doesn’t get to question him further, because he’s walked past her and is helping Ziva get Gibbs upright, the man furiously shoving them away, his eyes locked on Tony.

“DiNozzo, report,” he barks, coughing and almost throwing up more water. Kate frowns. Man really needs a hospital, now. “DiNozzo!”

Tony’s head lifts barely. “’lo, Boss,” he mumbles. “Not feeling so crash hot right now, sorry.”

Gibbs nods firmly. “Thought so,” he says. Coughs again. Kneels and shuffles towards the vampire, ignoring McGee’s nervous ‘ah’. “What do you need?”

“Nothing I’m taking from you.”

Stubborn, asshole DiNozzo. “Tony, I don’t know if you’ve got until we can get you out of here,” Kate warns because she can feel him fading. Whatever he had left, he’s given it. “No paramedics are getting in here—this whole block is on military lockdown until they get that thing.” _Take what he’s offering,_ she’s suggesting without saying, because it’s not really her place to tell either of them what to do. Not with this. Feeding is so much more than a bite, and she’s not sure she’d have offered it even if she had the blood to give.

“No.”

Silence. Gibbs snarls, teeth suddenly sharp and wolfish. “Didn’t give you a damn choice,” he warns, moving to snap those sharp fangs down onto his arm. “Don’t think you _have_ a choice other than to live, DiNozzo.”

But he doesn’t get the chance to force it, because there’s a quiet voice.

“No,” Ziva says, walking past Gibbs to hold her hand out to Tony as though to help him stand. “Come on.”

Silence.

“Ziva?” Tony murmurs, eyes wide and more Tony than they’ve been since the foggy paths—Tony at his best, worried but still thinking.

“David! The hell you are!”

“Gibbs is hurt,” Ziva continues, shooting Gibbs a look that’s both disdainful and concerned. “He does not have the strength to help you. McGee is made of clay, Kate is dead, and you are dying. The longer we wait, the more time that beast has to destroy our city. I am not offering anything I am not willing to give.”

Tony takes her hand. They stand, together, and without another word she leads him away. No one says anything in the time that follows. Echo waits with Kate and Gibbs as McGee goes to get the van to get them out of there and regroup. Tony and Ziva don’t return, and Kate can see that Gibbs is taking this as a failure. He shouldn’t.

At least they’re alive.


	16. Gibbs and the Coward

“Stop moving, Jethro. If I don’t clear your lungs, you _will_ be going to A&E.” Ducky isn’t kidding. There’s a bite of scolding in his voice that he doesn’t get a lot, and Gibbs knows better than to ignore that. He stills, Ducky’s hand warm on the bare skin of his back as he works to dislodge the saltwater still clogging up Gibbs’s lungs. There’s a bowl resting on his lap, his scowl aimed firmly into the frothy water already spat into it, and McGee is _looming_.

“I’m not dead, McGee,” he says shortly. “Not even close. We _are_ on the edge of war though, so don’t you think there are better things you could be doing right now?”

“Everyone is working to find out how to take out the Bane,” McGee answers. “Ziva’s with the kid we found down there—CPS was supposed to come for her once we get her identified, but there’s a general lockdown on movement until we get the Bane out of the way, so they can’t get here.”

“Tony?”

“With Ziva.”

Gibbs winces slightly. Sure, Tony’s alive. Actually looking alive now too, with a spark in his eye he’s lacked for a long time, but Gibbs isn’t sure he’s happy with how it went down. Wasn’t Ziva’s place to take that hit—it should have been him, despite the fact that he knows he’d never be able to look DiNozzo in the eyes again afterwards. There are side-effects to a vampire bite. Gibbs isn’t an innocent, he knows what they are—and it only makes the sick feeling worse, because that’s also something Ziva shouldn’t have had to do for this team. It goes against a fundamental part of her. She didn’t just take a moral hit then, but an ideological one too. Gibbs knows exactly what her faith forbids her from doing. Knows exactly what she did anyway. Knows how far he’s asked her to stray from her beliefs.

“Abby?”

“Right here, Gibbs.” They turn to find Abby dashing in, looking tired and _wired._ Gibbs wonders how much coffee she’s had. “Okay, so I looked it up and, boy, do I wish they hadn’t used a _dragon_. Turns out Banes are pretty impervious to magic and bullets, which we knew, but also that they retain their natural powers, to an extent.”

Gibbs thinks that over. “So that thing’s got as much juice as a dragon has got?”

Abby nods. “Which is a _lot_. But you know that. Also, we normally kill Banes with fire. Because, dead. But, uh, dragons are… well, they don’t burn.”

“That does make things a little simpler, Jethro,” Ducky says suddenly, earning all their attention. “After all, unlike the Bane, we _do_ know what is strong enough to take down a dragon.”

“What?” asks McGee.

It’s Gibbs who answers, because he knows this answer, intimately: “Another dragon.”

 

* * *

 

Gibbs walks into the bullpen to find a slimy worm standing there waiting for him.

“Got nerve showing your face here,” he growls, feeling the wolf growl with him. CIA operative and Gibbs’s most wanted, Trent Kort, just smiles with his fangs showing and shrugs. “The hell do you want?”

This asshole left Tony to die. Left him _alone_. Walked him right into a damn trap and slipped away, like a rat. Gibbs knows what to do with rats: kill them fast.

“Times are troubled, Agent Gibbs,” the worm responds. His voice is as unpleasant as the rest of him. “Banes loose in the city. Vampires at the core of it all. Necromantic uprisings.”

“Kort, you sonofabitch,” Tony snarls suddenly, appearing from nowhere with his expression a storm of anger and hatred. “Do you—urgh!”

Kort moves faster than Gibbs realises, pinning Tony to the wall with his weapon trained on him. “You traitorous prick, do you have any _idea_ what you’ve done by killing Benoit?” he snaps, gun hard on Tony’s temple.

Gibbs didn’t consciously plan to pull his weapon, but pulled it is. He’s not the only one. From a hive of activity, the bullpen in its entirety is now silent, every weapon there trained on Kort. There’s silence.

“Get the hell away from my agent,” comes a voice from overhead; Gibbs doesn’t have to look to recognise Jenny. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Kort lets go, holstering his weapon and stepping back from Tony with his hands in the air. “The man who would have stopped this from happening, if your man hadn’t walked back in,” he says, turning slowly to look up at their director. “Every vampire in this city is going to end up dead because of him, you realise this?”

“I didn’t kill Benoit. Didn’t even know he was dead.” Tony is rubbing his throat where Kort pinned him, but he’s not looking at the director. He’s looking at Gibbs—he needs Gibbs to know this. “He was the fall guy for this, the one linking the necromancers with the VFD. With him gone, there’s no fall guy. There’s just us and them—when the story comes out, people are going to want someone to blame.”

“And without him, it’s every other vampire,” Kort finishes. “We’ll be lucky if we aren’t hung on national TV, right down to the last child.”

“Ain’t gonna happen,” Gibbs says softly.

“No,” Kort agrees with a cold laugh. “It’s probably not. After all, if the necromancers win this, we’ll all be dead before that.”

 

* * *

 

“Tony.” Gibbs stops him before he slips into Abby’s lab. They can both see the child sitting at Abby’s desk, an empty sheet of drawing paper in front of her and colour pencils untouched by her side. Ziva is sitting near her, cross-legged on the floor with a laptop on her knees, focused on her work but with her attention diverting occasionally to the child. “I’m going to get Fornell to bring your father in here.”

“Fornell’s a bit busy, isn’t he?” Tony asks after wincing. “What’s Dad going to do for us?”

“He knows about them,” Gibbs answers shortly, nodding to the child. “He knows what we’ve got to do to reach them.”

Tony is quiet for a moment, muted. “What if we can’t?” he finally asks. Gibbs watches him closely as he looks away, noting a bruise on his throat barely hidden by his collar. “The ones that died underground… Kate says you saw them. Do you think they can be reached?”

“Kate reached you.” It’s as simple as that; they’d reached Tony when he was dying. If they managed that, managed to stall him long enough for him to save Gibbs’s life, they can reach anyone. “Where is she?”

“Kate? There.” Tony nods through the door. Gibbs leans around him, spotting Kate and Abby standing close together by the monitors. It’s a sight Gibbs never expected to see again, not once. “Eternal damnation my ass. All I got for bringing her back was—” He stops, grinning. Gibbs sighs. Tony’s never going to change.

“You need to talk about that?” he grunts, not wanting to ask, but needing. “If there’s going to be shit coming up, I need to know.”

“Me? Why me? Why doesn’t _she_ need counselling about it?” Tony thinks about that for a second. “Actually, I get it. I have more bruises than she does, yow. Let me tell you this, Gibbs, a cat in—”

“ _Tony_. You good to work? That’s all I need.”

Tony grins sheepishly. “Yeah, Boss. I’m good. Let’s go save the world.”

“Good. Get your father in here. I’m going to see a dragon about a Bane.”

 

* * *

 

First, he stops by Ziva.

“You alright?” he asks, without hinting at what. She won’t thank him for drawing attention to it.

“Why would I not be?” is her short retort, her eyes not even lifting from her laptop. There’s a smug kind of sharpness to her expression which settles his nerves; she wouldn’t be looking so cocky unless she’s at peace with what happened. “I saved a friend. Now, I am working to stop a war. Everything is just apples, Gibbs.”

Peachy, he thinks, but leaves that to Tony to correct.

“She doing anything?” he asks instead, nodding to the little girl, who looks at him. All brown eyes and a fierce complexion surrounded by dark-blonde curls. She’s cute, and deadly, and he doesn’t know which one she’s more of. “Do we even know who she was yet?”

Ziva bristles. “We do not know who she _was,”_ she replies sharply, before looking at the girl and softening. “But now… we know a little about who she _is_.”

“Do we?” Doesn’t seem to Gibbs that they do. Seems like she’s a little statue sitting there waiting for someone to come fill her head with whatever they want, just like Senior filled Tony’s. But, that’s not right, is it? Tony’s never been Senior. And he’s never been Gibbs. He’s just been… himself.

“Yes,” Ziva says firmly. “We know that she loves cats.”

The girl doesn’t answer, but she does smile a little, her eyes brightening just a bit.

“Alright,” Gibbs concedes, seeing that light. “Well, how about she draw me one then. Can you do that? Draw me a cat for when I get back?”

The girl’s eyes flicker to him, then to Ziva. “One with spots?” she whispers, hand reaching out to curl around an orange pencil. “I like spots.”

There it is. Something to fight for. These kids aren’t done yet.

“I like spots too,” he says, leaving them both there to work.

 

* * *

 

He’s not entirely sure how it works, summoning dragons, but he’s going to try anyway. The bag of scales has lived in his desk since the day he’d been gifted them from the young dragon. He takes them outside now, the quiet of the surrounds betraying the chaos of DC at the moment. Across the lawn he pours them, crouching in the centre and brushing his hand against one.

“Not a great time for decorating, is it?” Kate asks from behind him.

“Summoning dragons,” he answers bluntly. “They don’t exactly have phones.”

“Ah.” She comes to stand next to him, looking down at the ring of glimmering scales. “Whose are they?”

“A friend’s.” He relents when she does nothing but look at him. She was dead then. She doesn’t know. “I was… taken. Pushed into fighting. There was a dragon there with me, a kid.”

Kate nods like she knows, even though she really can’t possibly— “I know,” she says. He stares at her. “I was dead, Gibbs. Where do you think the people who died went? There were so many who talked about those pits, so many who died there.”

Gibbs’ heart gives a strange twist as he stares at her, stunned by this revelation. “A boy,” he manages roughly. “A little boy, a little shifter. Just a pup, a—” Christ, he can’t remember what form Zach Tanner could take, just that he was a species of dog. “—his name is Zach Tanner. Did you meet him?”

“I don’t know,” she answers. His hand is wrapped so tightly around the scale in his palm that he can feel it slicing his skin. “There were so many, and not all of them told me their names. And lots just vanished, before I could speak to them. Ah, Gibbs.”

He shakes his head, frustrated beyond belief. Things keep _almost_ being offered to him, then snatched away…

“Gibbs.”

He looks at her, then turns to look at what she’s looking at.

 _“Hello, brother wolf,”_ says the great green dragon he’d met so long ago, her voice a laugh. Another dragon sits by her, his wings outspread and his hide a sky blue. Gibbs looks at him, and knows him, even though he’s not as small as he once was anymore.

“That was fast,” Gibbs says, stunned.

 _“We were coming here anyway. We felt them resurrect her.”_ Just like that, the laughter is gone, leaving only grief and anger in the female dragon’s voice.

Her.

Oh.

“You know the Bane?” Gibbs asks gently, sensing the pain here. “Who she was before they turned her into what she is now?”

 _“My friend,”_ Wolfwind, the dragon who so long ago Gibbs had comforted in those pits, says sadly. _“She was captured with me but died before they even made us fight. I watched her die. I did not know that they kept her body to do… **this.** ”_

Gibbs shudders as something slow and horrible creeps into his thoughts. “She was in the pits?” he asks, not really needing them to confirm that. The bodies of the creatures that died, magical beasts, rare and powerful and dangerous… they’d never found all of them.

And the necromancer had said there were more Banes to be loosed.

 _“Something terrible approaches, brother wolf,”_ the green dragon says, lowering her head. _“Our kind has come to take our sister’s body home, to drive the filth from it and let her rest, but there are more. We can feel it. The very song of this place is warped. Our flight here passed over pockets of darkness, sour lines running below this earth that our wings could barely stand to feel. There is a great spellcasting building around your city home—it is not complete yet, or we could not have entered the city limits, but it feels like it will be soon. What would you ask of us?”_

What? Gibbs frowns, for a moment thrown. “I was going to ask you to help with the dragon Bane, to take it out,” he begins, but Wolfwind shakes his head.

 _“We would do that anyway,”_ he answers. Kate makes a soft noise at the trill of his voice, as awed by the beasts as Gibbs himself had been so long ago. _“I still owe you a great debt, and you summoned us here to collect. Would you ask us to stay and face this darkness with you? Otherwise, we will flee before this land is consumed.”_

“If I ask that, am I asking for you to die?” Gibbs asks cautiously. Can he justify that? “You said you won’t be able to escape once whatever is building is complete.”

_“Nothing will be able to escape. It is a trap, and we are all within it. We may die. We may not. Many definitely will. But we do not know enough to say—we do know that there are more like our sister being woken in the earth here. One like her almost decimated your military forces—how will you fare against three scores of them?”_

They won’t. They’ll be wiped out in seconds.

“Can your people fight the Banes?” he asks of them, unable to shake the sensation that he’s asking too much. “We need to stop that spell, and we can’t do that if we’re fighting a wave of the dead.”

The older dragon answers: _“We can. We will. Good luck, brother wolf. We hope you are successful, for our sakes too.”_

 _“Bye, Gibbs,”_ Wolfwind adds, whistling like a bell, a soft chime that Gibbs feels warm to hear. And, just like that, they’re gone, wings silent as they fly away. Gathering the scales back into the bag, Gibbs stares at them, wondering just how long this has all been building. Kate’s death, his abduction… it’s all culminating, and in what?

“Do you think they’ll be okay?” Kate asks him as he goes to walk inside and tell Jenny that they have dragons on their side.

“I don’t know, Kate,” he says honestly. “I don’t think any of us are going to be.”

There’s a storm coming, and they’re in the eye of it.

 

* * *

 

They watch the Bane’s death on the screens in MTAC. Gibbs would have called it a destruction, but it’s not. Not really. There’s nothing destructive about it, despite the flames that the dragons use to bring her down.

And that’s the difference, isn’t it? Before, when Gibbs had faced it, he’d seen it as a monster. Now?

He’s watching a family fight to bring their sister home. Just like they’d fought to bring Tony back to them, except Tony’s now standing beside him alive and real and sane after whatever Ziva had given him and the extra top up Ducky had had waiting in a cooler of blood bags when they’d gotten here. That’s not going to happen for the dragon.

And MTAC is silent as the dragon Bane falls for the final time, dragons landing around her and lowering their heads in grief, their songs replacing the terrible screams it had voiced. No one celebrates its death.

They mourn that it had to happen at all.

And then the day moves on.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs doesn’t sit in on Tony’s interview with Senior. He doesn’t trust himself to, not with the raw emotions from earlier still driving him. It’s too close to the time of losing Tony, and getting him back, for Gibbs to be calm or rational. But that doesn’t mean he’s leaving Tony alone with the sonofabitch. He’s staying in the observation room the whole damn time, and nothing can get him out of here until Tony’s done.

“You know,” Senior is saying quietly to Tony, “some part of me knew you weren’t back with the clan, not really back.”

“Uh huh, sure,” Tony replies. “I’m sure, Dad. Because your ability to tell when you’re being swindled has _always_ been your strongest point. Face it, you’re a shit conman and you’re in too deep.”

Senior just shrugs. “Been in too deep since the day we brought you home.”

That silences Tony, but Senior’s not done.

“It’s kind of a relief, that you’re loyal to this. Because, hey, at least you’re loyal to something. Not like me… been a long time since anyone on our side has been loyal to anything. Power corrupts, Tony. Absolutely.”

“If you were so against what was happening, why didn’t you tell me to begin with? Why let me get pulled so far in?”

Senior buries his head in his hands for a moment before emerging. “Because you’re one of _them_ , you always have been. One of the bitten, just currency in this war the necromancers have going. I figured if I kept you close, pushed how important you were to me, it would keep you _safe_. They’d have put you on the front line, just another bought and paid for bitten, but you’re not, you’re my _son_ , and I should have listened to your mother. I should have run with you at the start.”

Tony just watches Senior impassively. “But you didn’t run.”

“No, I didn’t. You know, they talked us into this originally by saying they were using orphaned kids, street rats. Kids no one would miss, who they were giving a better life. Some of us bought that. I bought it, most of the kids were so damn skinny and unloved, it was a hell of a thing to bring them in and see them getting better, even if… well, even if we had to wait until we knew if the bite had stuck. It doesn’t always, you know. Sometimes they just died. Sometimes they turned and then went nuts. Sometimes they just stayed blank.”

“At any point, you could have stopped this, Dad. At _any_ point you could have talked—there are ways around a blood oath, and you know it.”

“I really couldn’t have, son. I’m a coward. Always have been. That’s honestly what clued me into this being, well, lies. All of it. Because they told us that the kids we bit, the ones we raised, they’d be everything we put into them and nothing else. But look at you… you’re no coward. You’re loyal and brave and still standing strong, even though everything you ever knew is a lie. Where the hell did you get that? I never gave it to you.”

Tony just barks a cold laugh, leaning back in the chair with his arms behind his head like he doesn’t care at all what’s happening right now, or that his father is looking at life behind bars. “So, I was one of the first then?”

“Yeah. The very first round. I was newlywed, we wanted a kid, your mother… well, we put our hand up. Didn’t know what we were in for. They told us you’d get a better life.”

“Thanks, Dad, for that better life. Kidnapped and bitten, shit, just what I would have wanted. Do you know the name of the kid who died to make me?”

“Yes.”

Gibbs doesn’t think that Tony had expected that yes because he looks shocked. “How?”

“Your mother. She took one look at you and said, ‘that’s no orphan’, and then she went hunting. Tracked down your… Samuel’s parents, his family, and realised that they were still looking for their son. As far as I know, they’re still looking. They never stopped. And I’m a coward, so I stopped her from telling them that he was… gone. And since she died, I haven’t had a choice. I had to keep jumping through their hoops, for you, Tony. Don’t you understand? Our family name, if it came out, you’d suffer. I had to—”

“You had a choice,” Tony snaps. “You want to know who didn’t have a choice? Sammy. He didn’t choose to die. Here’s some other people who didn’t have choices—the rest of those kids you took, their families, the people who loved them. And here’s a list of people who _did_ have choices, Dad. There’s two people on it: you, and me. Want to know what I chose? To _live_. To fucking live, and to help people—to stop people like you, who _choose_ to hurt others. You’re a coward and your family name doesn’t mean shit to me. My family isn’t made of cowards and vampires—it’s made of the people I chose. You think I’ll ever need you to do _anything_ for me when I’ve got someone five thousand times the man you’ll ever be, even when he’s a wolf?”

Gibbs blinks.

Oh.

Tony’s standing now. “Gibbs chose to live,” he says quietly but with no less ferocity in his voice. “He could have laid down and died in those pits and I would have never thought less of him for it. But he chose to live, Dad, and guess what—it was hard and it hurt and he did it anyway. Just like me choosing to live is. And here’s something that’s not hard at all: me walking away from you. Enjoy prison. I won’t visit.”

Senior sits there, stunned, as Tony walks out. “You can’t stop this,” he calls. “None of you can stop it now.”

“Maybe not,” Tony snaps. “But I’m damn well going to try. And that’s _my_ choice.”

Gibbs meets his eyes as he walks in, breathing hard and flushed red. “You mean that?” he asks.

Tony just grins. “Every damn word. Come on. Let’s go be heroes, right up until we’re killed.”

Gibbs has never been prouder to follow. Pack is pack, no matter how many legs it runs on.


	17. Us and the Beginning of the End

Echo appears in the bullpen as the sun falls. _“It’s happening,”_ she says, right before chaos descends. Alarms shrill. The media already know, even as every phone in the building begins to chime as one. In a perfect circle with the centre of DC bang in the middle, a great magical force appears over the city and surrounds. It’s enormous, and very visible, appearing very suddenly as a fog so thick it almost seems impenetrable. And impenetrable it is: the first that the people of DC know of it is the deaths it causes when several passenger planes slam into it. Below, on the highways and country roads, cars crash into it or veer away to avoid it.

The death tolls rises and the fog grows stronger. Feeding upon it.

Jenny Shepard emerges from her office, already briefed on what is happening, watching the information filter through the agency. They’re in a giant trap that’s just sprung shut, and every single one of them is in danger when the hunter arrives to collect their prize. Just who the hunter is, and what they want, no one knows yet.

She calls for calm.

“If it’s a war the necromancers want,” she says in a voice that carries to every head below, “it’s a war they’ll get. I want every agent ready to fight. We protect this city.”

Until the end, no matter how close that is.

 

* * *

 

She has done it. The little girl has done it.

Ziva sits at her desk looking at the drawing in front of her. It is a cheetah. Not just a cheetah, it is _her_. She recognises the markings down her face, the lopsided swirl of her eye colourations. It is a cheetah and a child, the cat arched protectively above the child underneath.

Around here, there is chaos. Everyone is preparing. Tony stands across from her, sliding his own vest on and checking his weapons. Weapons, plural. They are arming for a war. Abby slips from him to McGee, checking the charms on their weapons and vests, adding more as she frets about their safety.

“Suit up, David,” Gibbs orders, striding past with his own vest hanging loose. It is bigger than theirs, and she realises it is one made for his wolfish chest. In this, he will fight upon four legs. “We need to know what that thing is, which means we’re heading out there.”

“Gibbs, look,” Ziva says, holding up the picture. He looks annoyed for a moment, before pausing. “She drew this.”

Gibbs nods. He understands. “We protect her too,” he says in a way that she knows is a promise.

“Gibbs!” Shepard, appearing overhead. “We’ve got reports of seven new Banes, at all corners of the city. Where are your dragons?”

There is no more time. Ziva slides the drawing into her drawer and reaches for her vest.

 

* * *

 

“Where are we going, Echo?” Jimmy chases his dog up the hall as she bounds towards the bullpen, stress ratcheting through him. This is terrible, the _worst_. The world is ending and he’s just got his dog back—how is that even fair? “Echo, stop!”

Echo doesn’t, just pads into the bullpen and between the desks until she’s standing by Gibbs, tail high. _“It’s not complete,”_ she calls, the team turning to look at her. Palmer shrugs uselessly. He doesn’t know what his dog does anymore, he really doesn’t. _“The circle. It’s not done yet—if it was done, my kin would be here. They are not, thankfully, considering what is waiting for them.”_

“Tell us now,” Gibbs demands. “What do we need to do to stop it completing?”

_“I don’t know. I can’t even tell what it’s made of. The working is trapped within another working—two shields in a great ring around it, with the working within the two. To understand it, we would either need to go into the working or find someone who knows how it works.”_

“How do you _not_ know how to stop it?” Gibbs is furious. Jimmy shrinks away from that anger. “Your people sent you here to help!”

_“My people sent me here for **them.** They need it to complete—that is what will summon them. Right now, my goal is to guide you towards destroying those that would counter them when they arrive.”_

“You mean us,” Tony replies. “Vampires.”

_“The Banes too. There are more than seven out there. I can feel at least thirty, with more coming. The necromancers who are not working on the circle are raising them faster than your dragons can kill them.”_

“Right, new plan,” Gibbs says, turning on them. “Abby, we need to know what that working is, and we need a necromancer for that.”

She shuffles nervously. “Agent Fornell took the necromancer lady we had. All we have here is Tony’s Dad, and he’s—”

“Mawher,” Tony says. Abby pales. “Sorry, Abs, but he’ll tell you. If we get you in there, can you convince him you want in?”

Hands on her mouth like she’s going to be sick, she nods.

“I’m going with you,” Tony begins, but Gibbs stops him.

“No, we need you elsewhere. Someone has to get the vampires on our side—they’re being targeted for a reason, DiNozzo. If there are any bitten left, you need to get them with us. If they counter the Wild Hunt, then I’ll bet my boat that they counter the necromancers too. See if your dad can help.”

Tony stares, but nods. “Right, yeah, that’s… something I can do,” he finally says. “But she can’t go alone.”

“I’ll go,” squeaks Jimmy, without even thinking through what he’s actually saying. Suddenly, he has a bunch of eyes on him and no way to take it back. “Um. I mean, I’m not very magic, but I’m… company. And I have Echo. Don’t I?”

_“Yes.”_

“There. So… I’ll go with Abby. We can do this, right, Abby?”

She nods, looking determined. “Right.”

 

* * *

 

“Can you even drive?” Tim asks Kate as they run down to the truck, under orders from both Gibbs and Shepard to get out to where the circle started and find out what the hell they’re up against. Kate’s not sure why they’re being sent—McGee knows magic, but not as well as Abby does, and she’s got nothing going for her but being a ghost.

“I think my license might be a little expired,” she teases, taking shotgun as he slips into the driver’s seat. “Although, I seriously doubt we’re going to be pulled over. Every cop in the city is fighting Banes.”

The elevator slides open and someone hurries out, waving at them to stop. McGee stares as the man runs to the van and ushers Kate aside.

“Move over, Caitlin,” Ducky demands, pulling the door open and climbing in. “I’m coming. I’ve seen my fair share of circle workings in my life—and I know necromancy. You need me.”

He’s not wrong.

“Alright, Duck,” McGee agrees. “But hang on—I’m going to have to drive like Ziva to get us there fast.”

Ducky grabs the handle.

Kate should probably have taken that as a warning.

 

* * *

 

_“Hi, Gibbs,”_ sings Wolfwind as they move towards him. They’re downtown, and here for a reason. The Bane loose here… it’s personal. _“We found your manticore.”_

_“Yeah, you did,”_ Gibbs sends shortly, standing side by side as a wolf with the dragon as they watch the mages working to contain the beast within the building it’s in. They can’t keep that up forever. Someone’s gonna have to go in there and face it. _“Aren’t you a bit young to be fighting?”_

The young dragon shrugs, a surprisingly human motion on reptilian shoulders. _“I’m not considered young anymore, after my experiences in the pit,”_ he replies. _“Besides, we are stretched thin. It takes a full wing to take down a single one of these beasts, and we have taken injuries.”_ As he speaks, he nods towards the line of dragons watching them from atop a nearby building. _“When you want us to move in, we are ready.”_

“Gibbs,” Ziva says from behind him. He turns, finding Shepard and Ziva both watching newcomers approach, a line of grey and tan. They stand out even in the crowded street, mages and Army racing around to try and contain the undead manticore.

_“What are you doing here, Tobias?”_ Gibbs asks the wolves walking towards them, startled but not displeased to find the Quantico pack here beside him.

_“Heard you had a manticore,”_ Fornell answers, like it’s obvious. _“Didn’t think we should leave you to face that alone.”_

_“I’m not alone,”_ Gibbs says. He nods, at first to the dragon beside him, then to Ziva and Jenny, who have his six and always will.

_“Dragons aren’t going to do you much good unless you can flush it out of that building first.”_ Fornell winks at him. _“Come on, old timer. One last hunt?”_

_“We could die.”_

_“We could do that any day of the week. That thing alone in there?”_

Gibbs looks at Jenny as she finishes being briefed by the unit lead, coming back over to them. “There are wraiths in there with it,” she warns them. “They’re weak but nasty. Don’t let them bite you.”

“What kills them?” Ziva asks.

“I’ve found bullets work pretty well on just about anything,” Jenny replies, shooting Gibbs a look.

_“You and her are scarily alike,”_ Fornell mutters.

Gibbs huffs at him. _“You watch your mouth.”_

With a laugh, Fornell moves into place beside him. It’s one Bane out of dozens, but every Bane they take down is one less to worry about later.

If they survive it.

_“Don’t die,”_ Gibbs orders them, knowing they’ll listen. They wouldn’t dare not. _“Earplugs activated? Right. Let’s go.”_

 

* * *

 

Tony’s not even shocked when Senior takes him not to the rift door in the basement, not to the group home where Benoit died, but to his childhood bedroom. “It’s fucked you put a rift door in my _room_ ,” he grumbles as he watches his father activate it. “Where does this even lead?”

“Somewhere safe,” Senior says. “If there are any of us left involved with this, well, they’re down there.”

Great. More underground. When this is over, Tony’s never going underground again, not ever.

And he follows his father through the rift door, and down down down into the dark. He doesn’t know what’s down here. He doesn’t know if they’ll follow him. He doesn’t know if this will work.

But damnit, he has to try.

They deserve the choice.

 

* * *

 

“Baby, I always knew you’d come back to me.” Mikal is babbling, his eyes the messed-up kind of crazy that Abby’s never going to find hot again. And yeah, shit, she knows that Palmer is just outside the visitor’s room and there’s an armed guard right behind her, but she’s _terrified_ right now. This dude was going to kill her and enslave her soul—that’s a whole level of hinky she just doesn’t want to deal with, ever. “I knew that, when you saw what we’d done, you’d come back.”

The guard can’t hear them talking and that’s the only reason the blood oath Abby took doesn’t choke her right now, as she leans in and gives him her best kind of smile. He doesn’t deserve it, nope, but someone’s gotta do it, otherwise, people are going to die and all because Abby didn’t do enough to save them.

“Gosh, Mik, that working, it’s amazing,” she says, making sure to _ooze._ Slinky, slimy words to make him believe she’s in on this. “I can feel it from here… it feels _fantastic.”_ Half of that is a lie. Half isn’t. She _can_ feel the ginormous whatever-it-is spell from here, she really can—but she’s never felt anything so horrible in her life. It feels like screaming, like the act of screaming. Hoarse and scratching and ripping up from somewhere deep inside her. It feels like being such a level of scared that all she can do is screech and hope that something hears her or, failing that, that the sound of her dying warns her family away.

“Baby, baby, baby, if only you knew.” Mikal is actually _wriggling_ with excitement, oh no. Oh no oh no. Wriggly Mikal isn’t a good thing—he gets wriggly over all the wrong things, like people dying and blood and gore, and not in the way Abby does but in the ‘hey this is a good thing’ instead of the ‘hey this is an interesting yet terrible thing’ and oh no.

“You can tell me,” Abby says, sliding her chair towards him and ignoring the guard’s disapproving cough. “You know I can’t tell anyone…” Closer yet, and she lowers her voice to a husky purr. “I can… _help_.” A hand on his knee.

He grins, eyes flickering to the guard and then back to her before leaning in close.

“Give me one last kiss before the end of the world, and I will,” he whispers.

Urgh.

The things she does for her Gibbs.

 

* * *

 

Tim stares at what they’re up against. “Holy heck,” he says, stunned as they use their badges to push through the crowd of terrified gawkers and refugees fleeing the endangered city. Police and military are already here, FBI spotted among them, trying to push the crowd back and get some space for the mages to work on the shield that veers up and over their heads, like a dome tipped overhead. They’re fish in a bowl, and Tim’s not sure that they’re going to live for long inside it.

“Holy fuck alright,” Kate parrots, staring as well. “Can you see inside it?”

Tim can’t. It’s fog and white pressed against what looks like a glass wall, the fog eddying against the sheer edge like a knife has been drawn between it and the rest of the world. “No. Can you?”

“Yeah,” Kate says quietly but doesn’t say anymore. Her form is flickering worriedly like she’s not sure whether to stay or run, and McGee touches her elbow to let her know that he’s there for her. It’s gotta be weird, to come back to life and face… this.

This, which is strangely familiar. He looks at that fog, and he knows it. He knows what it’s made of.

“Excuse me,” Ducky says, hurrying off with them chasing after. “Oh no, go do what you need to. I must get a closer look… the workings for this must be somewhere around here…”

“We’ve found no rune workings or anything,” a mage tells them tiredly, sitting by an ambulance with her hands being worked on. “Also, don’t touch it. It burned me badly when I cast at it. Whatever it is, we can’t fight it physically, or magically, and it’s getting stronger every minute.”

“Why?” Tim asks. “What’s feeding it?”

“Buddy, when you know, tell me, because I haven’t the foggiest. No pun intended.”

But Ducky is already walking towards the fog, ignoring the cracks and pops of magic on his skin and clothes the closer he gets. With a yelp, McGee gives chase, Kate not far behind. “Ducky! Don’t touch it—you heard him, we don’t know… what are you doing?”

What he’s doing, apparently, is digging. They watch in stunned silence as people skirt them, shooting them strange looks. “Ah,” Ducky says finally, pulling back. “Here. I knew there was a working somewhere. Do you remember months ago, when we found all that salt?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Timothy, I think we just found _why.”_ And, as Ducky stands and walks away, McGee peers into the shallow hole he’s dug, to find white. Not just white—it’s salt, but somehow sealed in there, and there’s a shift of colour running through it. “I believe what we’re looking at is a gigantic rune… and I think we’ll find that it runs around the entire city.”

“Fuck,” says Tim, who remembers what the casting circle did to Tony.

Ducky just nods, looking grim. “Indeed.”

“Guys?” Kate says softly, lowering her voice so their onlookers can’t hear. “I think you should know… that fog? It’s filled with the dead. All I can see in there are the dead… and they’re watching us.”


	18. Ziva and the End

The building that the manticore Bane is in is filled with narrow corridors, blind corners, and tight ends. It is a maze.

It is a death trap. Ziva can smell it as soon as she moves into the building, the putrid rot of stinking flesh overlaid with the sour smell of the manticore as it is. At least, with this creature, there is no fire to worry about. No, just poison. Poison that will rot her from the inside out—and she is not so cocky as to think she will do a Gibbs and survive the unsurvivable. Her frame is too slight, her body too human. She will be dead before she even knows that she is dying.

But that is no excuse to feel fear. Gibbs walks before her, and he shows no fear. The wolves break away, splintering into the corridors and communicating perfectly well despite the sound-removing earplugs that they wear. It is entirely unsettling to go into this place deaf, knowing that the only thing between her a sharp sting and sudden death is her scent and her vision. That is why she is here; a human would be crippled by the loss of hearing.

She is not.

Even human shaped, she can feel the building telling what she needs to know; she feels the vibrations in the floor and ground of the clumsy beast. It does not hide. It does not have the mind to consider stealth. Her nose does the rest, leading her down into the depths where death waits.

She thinks of a few things on that short stalk. She thinks of the possibility of her own demise in this shadowed building with the power out and every hallway dark. She thinks of the people around her, and how even the wolves are really no match for what they are up against. She thinks of the people outside, who are relying on them to succeed. They must be the bait that leads the beast from safety into the trap, much like Gibbs had tried to douse the dragon’s flame with the ocean. That had not ended well. She hopes this ends better.

She thinks of Tony and what had happened between them, and she wonders if that will change things in the future. Probably not. The chances of them both surviving this seem slim.

And she thinks of the child, and if that child has a future to think of.

She hopes so. If she survives this, she decides, she will ensure it. That child will never become like Tony, abandoned by those who should love her… that child will never become like her, cold and emotionally distant. And she will never become like the bitten vampires who were never loved. Even if Ziva has to knock at every family’s door and find the one that she belongs to, she will get her home.

If she lives.

 

* * *

 

They win. The Bane is destroyed.

There is a cost. They pay so, so dearly for it. A cost so steep that, as they stand in silence for the fallen, Ziva knows they cannot pay it again and again and again. They cannot just keep throwing bodies at the Banes while hoping that the dragons can kill them. There are too many. They have killed two; dozens more remain.

In the building, the manticore had been disastrously destructive. It had torn through them like paper. From the way Gibbs had roared, Ziva knows he had felt every wolf’s death. She had never intended to be the one to lead it from the building—she had simply been there as a backup, her cat abilities twice as sharp as the wolves, even deafened. She was merely there to ensure they were not startled. And she had done that, but the creature had ripped through the wolves and come for her.

Damn.

_“Ziva, move!”_ Gibbs had cried at that moment. Putting himself between her and the beast. Stupid. Idiot. Fool man. Has he not suffered that poison enough?

She had abandoned her human shape and shown him that she is _speed_ and she is cunning, and she would not watch him be destroyed when capable of both those things. The manticore had seen her swiftness and chased, despite the wolves trying to stop it. She knows that three died at that moment, watched it rip through them. Fornell was among the group it tore through. As of yet, she does not know if he lives.

And it had chased her, always just slightly out of reach, until she burst out through a window, tumbling two stories down to hit the ground, hard. It had soared overhead after her, the dragons giving chase.

After that, she does not really know what happened. It had broken free of the dragons’ line at some point, torn into the crowd. Humans and mages killed. One of the dragons had been hit in the eye with the sting; if it survives, it will never see from that side again.

It nearly didn’t. Later, Ziva learns which dragon it was; the one that Gibbs calls Wolfwind. A child dragon. He is the bravest of them all, taking the fight to the manticore to stop it destroying the crowd, throwing bodies around like puppets.

In the end, it is not a dragon who kills it, but a woman with a grenade.

Ziva adds that to her list of things that can be killed by startlingly mundane things: manticores, and even Banes, cannot survive a grenade in the mouth.

Nor can foxes.

There is always a cost.

 

* * *

 

They stand in a line, grieving the dead. Stunned silence permeates. Ziva stays by Gibbs because she does not think he was ready to lose the director. Were any of them?

Ready or otherwise, she is dead. There is no turning that back. And many, many others with her.

But they are not allowed the time to grieve. Radios begin to chatter, radios on the living and the dead. Some call for people who will never answer. The others, they call for help. They all say the same things: their forces have been decimated. Another Bane is dead, another terrible cost has been paid. They cannot do it again with the personnel they have left.

Ziva is glad that Gibbs is still a wolf, because if he was human he may wonder why she has not taken human form also yet. While they are both animals, she can likely hide that she believes her leg may be broken from the hard fall she had taken. Cheetahs are racers, not fallers. Heights do them no great favours.

_“We cannot win this, Gibbs,”_ she warns him, seeing his ears flick back and stay low. By his side, Fornell nudges him with his muzzle, a companionable touch. Ziva is glad he survived. He is special to Gibbs, she can tell, despite the bickering. _“Not like this. Not a frontal assault.”_

_“We have to!”_ he snarls, whirling on her. _“She didn’t die so we could lose, David. None of them did!”_

_“She’s right,”_ Fornell sends distantly, hard for Ziva to hear. _“We… can’t.”_

_“So, what do we do then? Give up? Bow to our new necromantic kings?”_

Gibbs’s tirade is interrupted. _“Gibbs?”_ calls the dragon, Wolfwind. _“We’ve taken casualties. Should we keep fighting? It is getting harder, with your ground forces giving way…”_ Even as speaks, he is looking up to the foggy sky and the shield that looms overhead. _“That is growing stronger.”_

Gibbs is silent. The radios around them chatter. Ziva tried to shift her weight and accidentally hisses as the bones in her leg grind together, audibly enough that he glares at her.

“Gibbs,” calls a voice, someone jogging over. “I’ve got no fucking idea what to do with my men right now. Everything is on fucking fire, tell me you’ve got some clue on how to put it out.”

Hollis Mann, Ziva realises. The woman that Gibbs is—was? —intimate with. And the parrot from the pit.

Gibbs shifts, suddenly human, turning to look at Mann. Human, Ziva can see his grief even clearer. This death will haunt him. “We can’t fight them,” he says finally. “If they’re necromantic, they’ll die when their necromancers do.”

“Alright, sure, but we don’t know where the hell their necromancers are, and it’ll be days of searching—by the time we find them, we’ll all be dead. Got any faster ideas then hunting them down one by one, Gibbs?”

“Just one.” Gibbs closes his eyes for a moment, breathing hard before squaring his shoulders and charging forward. “We don’t hunt them… we get hunters to do that for us.”

Ziva is confused, right up until she is confused no longer; instead, she is wary. He is talking about the Wild Hunt.

“You thinking the Wild Hunt?” Mann asks, Fornell grunting with surprise, still a wolf. “Gibbs… we locked them up for a reason. We don’t remember that reason anymore, but I’m sure it was a good one. You think we’re having trouble stopping the Banes? That’s nothing compared to the malevolent fae.”

“We don’t have a choice. Wolfwind?”

The dragon trills, lowering his head and turning it so the gory mess of his poisoned eye is hidden.

“Don’t engage the rest of the Banes, not directly—get your people to herd them into the one area, if they can. Keep them away from masses of people. Can you do that?”

_“We can try. What are you going to do?”_

Gibbs is already walking away, Ziva limping after. “We’re going to break down that damn wall.”

 

* * *

 

The crowds around the wall push back against them as they tried to push through. Ziva’s leg is jarred so often that she thinks she might have to start biting just to shove her way through. It does not help that a cheetah is hardly large enough that people even pay _attention_ , and, before she knows it, she is losing sight of Gibbs as he manages to push through swifter than she can hobble.

Suddenly, she is in a crush of people, all of them shoving and fighting and screaming with fear. The atmosphere is choking. These people are trapped and are responding in kind, parents holding children who are almost too old to be held in their arms to avoid them being dragged down and stomped upon. Ziva does not have that luxury, not can she shift back without her leg tearing out of place. A knee catches her eye, a foot her paw, another knee into her chest. She is winded and dizzy and cannot see Gibbs and—

A hand catches the back of her neck; for a split second, she believes that she is in danger of being scruffed and reacts accordingly, whirling around and lashing out with a throbbing snarl that has people trampling back in a panic to get away from her jaws. And then, she is being lifted bodily by hands that turn her belly-up into a cradle in his arms that is _humiliating,_ and she cannot help the angry lash of her tail or the rumble that thumps through her at how vulnerable she is right now.

“I won’t tell DiNozzo,” Gibbs says, carrying her close to his chest with his arms tight around her and paws tucked in. “Don’t bite me.”

_“I will think about it,”_ she grumbles. He cannot hear her, but it makes her feel better. She has not been carried like such a child since she was… well, a child. Bizarrely, considering that this high she can now see what they are up against looming up close, she is still side-tracked by a thought of the child back at NCIS. When was the last time she was carried? Ziva swallows, ears flicking as she feels Gibbs’s heart beat powerfully by her shoulder. Despite the fact that she can smell the grief and anxiety coming from his body, his hand still rubs a slow circle into her shoulder where it rests, unconsciously comforting her. She does not fault him for that, despite the fact that she does not need comforting; perhaps it helps him more than it does her.

And then they are out of the crowd and striding towards the police barricade, who stand aside when they see Gibbs’s uniform and the NCIS collar hanging from Ziva’s throat.

“Medical truck parked over there,” one of them calls after a glance at Ziva’s crooked leg. Gibbs just grunts, weaving through and turning a slow circle to try and spot their team. Ziva doubts he can find them—the barrier spans DC, it is hundreds of miles long, the chance of them having come out exactly where the rest of the team are—

“Kate!” he shouts. Ziva cranes her neck around, blinking with slow surprise as she sees the strangely-hued gleam of Kate standing out from the crowd. How?

McGee stands from where he was crouched beside Ducky as they approach, his eyes immediately finding Ziva and widening with fear. Ziva rumbles again. She is _never_ going to live this down.

“Are you okay?” he asks her, before realising she cannot respond and turning to Gibbs. “Is she okay!?”

“Director Shepard is dead,” he answers. Ziva watches that ripple through the small group, Ducky’s eyes closing with quick grief, McGee just looking shocked. But Gibbs is not done, slowly lowering Ziva to the ground to let her hobble closer to Ducky, who leans to study her leg. As Gibbs straightens, he turns to look at the ground pressing in, the ring of police and military, the fear. “If a Bane breaks loose and heads this way, it’ll be a massacre. Any way to move these people out?”

“Not non-violently, I’m afraid, Jethro,” Ducky says. “They have already been talking about that—riot measures will incite panic and very likely drive those people fleeing for a reason right back into the Banes’ reach.”

“People are getting hurt in the crush,” McGee adds, swallowing. “They’ve got calming mages stretched out over the crowd, but we’ve already had three fatalities. People are scared. They want out. Anyone who has magic can feel that thing closing in on us—it’s getting hard to breathe.”

“Can you break it?” Gibbs asks, pacing over a long line of dug back dirt, mages still working to uncover more of the white workings underneath. Ziva sniffs: salt. Magically enabled salt… she can feel the power in the line from here, making her fur stand on end and her teeth ache, even as Ducky curls a hand around her leg and the pain from that finally recedes with his healing touch.

“No.” It is Ducky who answers. “Nothing outside of that—” He points to the shielded fog looming near enough to them that Ziva can feel the dark pulse of it. “—is vulnerable. We’ve tried. If there’s anything we can do to break this thing down, it’s inside of the shield.”

“Okay.” Gibbs turns towards the wall, craning his neck back and scowling at it. “So, can we smash _that?”_

McGee’s turn to be the bearer of bad news now: “No,” he says. “I really don’t think we can…”

 

* * *

 

It is feeling hopeless. Ziva is beginning to wonder if they should accept that and respond accordingly; surely, there are those who would rather spend their final moments with their family instead of here attempting to chip away at a wall that will not be breached in time? McGee, for one, checks his cell every two minutes, despite the reception being lost—likely for his sister. Gibbs is worried about Tony, about his pack. Ducky has his mother. Ziva thinks of the girl; she does not have family in this city, and neither does the child… if they are to die, she would rather they be together than alone. That seems fitting.

“Hey,” says the ghost suddenly, appearing next to where Ziva is pacing, despite the pain in her leg that Ducky does not have the time to be able to dispel completely. “I haven’t really had a chance to say… uh, well, hello, I guess. We don’t really know each other.”

Ziva stares at her. Is this really the time?

“And thanks, I guess,” Kate continues, blushing angrily like she is furious to be showing such emotion. Ziva wonders how she can blush without blood to pool. “For looking after them. I know it’s just a job, they’re just colleagues, but… they’re really not, are they? It’s never really like that. From the moment I started working with them, they were family… they’re _still_ family. And I guess I’m glad that, if I have to die again, at least this time we’re together… that’s selfish, isn’t it? Fuck.”

It is, but Ziva understands. She would have rather died alongside Tali than Tali dying alone. Family is there when times are darkest.

Like now.

_Oh,_ thinks Ziva, because she had been wrong. She _does_ have family in this city.

She is with them right now.

“Abby?” Kate says, voice loud. “Hey, Abby!” She waves and Ziva turns to scan the crowd, finding Abby with Palmer perched on her shoulder arguing with a police officer. Gibbs jogs past, pulling her through and leading her over. “You found us!”

“I don’t know how,” Abby says, nose crinkling. “I just kind of felt like you were here, you know?”

“Kate’s like a homing beacon,” McGee adds. “What did Mawher say?”

Abby breathes out in a low huff that Ziva groans inwardly at. It does not sound promising…

“Okay, so, I’d say sit down but well, we don’t have time for that,” Abby begins all in one long breath, rambling quickly. “That thing? All foggy and weird? It’s made of souls, and every death in the city is feeding it like some horrible infinite loop—that’s why it’s getting stronger. Anyone who dies here gets sucked into it.” Gibbs makes a low noise and they know what he is thinking: Jenny. “And, when it’s complete, well… the wall will come down.”

“What does that mean?” McGee asks in the quiet that follows them digesting it.

“I think I can guess,” Kate says grimly. “That’s the paths of the dead, isn’t it? That fog? It feels so _familiar_.”

“Yeah,” Abby says, nodding. “That’s exactly what it is. They’re overlaying the paths of the dead with our living world—once that wall comes down, the two places will basically be one and the same. The outer wall is going to stay in place, so the whole of DC is just going to fill up with the dead like a font of eternal power for the necromancers to draw from. We’ll basically be a big upside bowl of souls that they can use like a battery—every person, every animal—everything will be usable by them… and from there, they can sweep the rest of the country without anyone being able to fight back.”

Ziva wants to run and run and run and never look back. This is _not_ what she signed up for when she joined NCIS.

But there is no running, not anymore. There is only fighting. They cannot let this happen.

“We have to do something,” Kate exclaims, looking from one to the other with her light flickering oddly. “Where did you say it was vulnerable, Ducky?”

“Well, I didn’t, we just don’t know if it _is—_ but, if anywhere, I would say within the shield—”

Without a word, she turns and moves quickly, avoiding Gibbs to dart towards the wall.

“Kate!” roars Gibbs, but she only pauses a moment before stepping up to it and, as they watch and both McGee and Gibbs sprint to stop her, steps through and vanishes. Gibbs skids to a stop, staggering back like he cannot bear to be near the wall.

McGee keeps going until he is close and Ziva can see his glamour flickering wildly. “Kate!” he yells, reaching out but not quite touching the wall.

She does not come back.


	19. Abby and the Hunters

There’s this horrible, awful moment when Kate vanishes through the wall and Abby thinks that this is it. Today is going to end with so many people she loves dead, beginning with Jenny and Kate. Kate, again. Abby’s sick of losing people, especially this one person. Why can’t people just stay _alive?_ It’s not so hard—she plans on doing it for the rest of her life, at least. Gibbs is staring at the wall like he wants to tear it down, Ziva’s sitting with her back leg held all funny, and Ducky has his eyes shut like he can’t stand to see this happen again. Same, Ducky. _Same_.

But then Kate reappears. People are staring at her as she steps out into view and looks from the wall to the team, her expression only a little puzzled. Guess that makes sense. Weird is kind of their forte by this point. Weird, like Kate turning and waving her arm back and forth through the wall easily, like it’s nothing but the fog it looks like.

She turns back, Abby’s heart still doing a skip at the surprised-Kate-face she’s making, the one that Abby’s been missing for years now. “I can move through it?” she calls back. At that, there’s a surge of movement towards her, the alphabet soup of important men and women around them all shouting at once as they try to find out what she’d seen through there.

“Get back!” Gibbs roars. Only Abby sees it but, as he shouts, his voice catches a little and he winces. She frowns at him, and the way his hand had flickered to his chest. Is he hurt? Probably. Ziva’s not looking so crash either… “Kate, get over here.”

She does, vanishing from the wall and reappearing next to them. “It’s just the paths over there,” she says as soon as she’s back within them, Gibbs’s glare keeping people away. “I can’t even hear any of this—” She gestures around at the crowd growing louder and the mass of uniformed personnel: “—or see it. It’s just black. Crowded though. Shoulder to shoulder of terrified souls.”

_“Oh,”_ says a quiet voice below them, Echo appearing. _“It’s the black we saw in the paths… it must be the tears between the worlds. Going through it just leads you to one or the other.”_

“And going through it here leads you _out_ ,” Ducky says suddenly, his expression changing and becoming hopeful. At least, Abby hopes it’s hope. They could use some hope right now. “Caitlin—you could speak to them? The souls you saw?”

“Probably? I didn’t try, I wasn’t expecting to suddenly be in there. They didn’t seem to see me though.”

It’s Abby who realises. The thing’s power comes from the dead…

What if there aren’t any dead in there to feed it?

“Can you bring people out?” she asks slowly, heart hammering at the thought. Everyone looking at her, Ducky’s brow frowning as he considers the logistics of that. They don’t know how many souls are in it—anywhere from thousands, to hundreds of thousands. There’s no earthly way she can pull so many out. “It feeds on the dead, guys. If there are no dead people in there, it’s nothing. It will collapse on itself.”

“Even if I can, I can’t do that fast enough,” Kate argues, looking back at the wall. “I’m just _one_ person, and, don’t ever tell DiNozzo this, but I’m not that good. No one else can reach in without the shield around it burning them.”

“So, we break the shield,” Timmy says with the kind of calm that leads Abby to nod along for a moment before she realises the nuttiness of what he’s just said. “Don’t look at me like that, Abs, if we break the shield, maybe Kate can like get people on the inside moving towards the out. Maybe we can pull them through—there are thousands of people in this part of the wall alone. If everyone who can get close can pull a soul out, that’s a ton of souls no longer trapped—isn’t that worth it?”

“How are you planning to break it?” Abby asks. This is _dumb,_ this is a _dumb_ plan. How are they supposed to break the mega—

“I force it,” Tim says.

Abby reinforces her theory: this is a _dumb_ idea.

“You’re just one golem, McGee,” Gibbs says quietly. “It’ll fry you.”

“Nothing special about golems except we’re magically resistant,” Tim says firmly, crossing his arms. Uh oh. Abby knows that look. He’s gonna be _stubborn._ “Same as a ton of other things—werewolves, for one. Elves, if we’ve got any of those. Dragons, for sure. Demons.”

“Gremlins,” Jimmy pipes up, his wings flickering.

“Fae,” says Ducky quietly.

“Vampires,” says another voice. Abby whirls around: Tony!

And he’s not alone.

She swallows and steps back as the group he’s leading through the crowd press nervously against the barricade, people pushing back to make a firm circle around them. There’s an ugly kind of noise spreading from Tony’s group out, as people move aside to let them pass before noticing just what they’re letting pass.

Vampires. At least thirty, all watching Tony and Senior as they stand before Gibbs and look just as annoyingly stubborn as McGee looks.

“So, McGee’s not that alone,” Tony adds, shooting a bright smile that’s 100% Tony with an extra 10% sass. “We’re counters, right? Let’s counter.”

Gibbs stares. Abby hopes that he’s going to shout this down, say no, just as much as she kind of knows he’s not going to. They don’t really have a choice at this point, do they?

“Did you hear that?” he asks the generals standing near them as he turns, seeing them nod before continuing. “Get a call out—we need anyone magically resistant up the front. Warn them this is going to bite. The more hands we get on that shield, the less kick it’ll have—Kate?”

“Yeah, Gibbs?”

Gibbs nods at her, his expression firming out into determination. “Get in there and see if you can get anyone out. We need to know if we’ve got a chance before we start pulling civilians in.”

“Right.”

She turns and flickers over to the wall before vanishing inside. In the small beat of time between her vanishing and reappearing again, Abby’s pretty sure that she’s lived a lifetime. But, reappear she does.

And she’s not alone.

“Look,” Kate says with a shaky grin, her hand through another’s, an older woman who stares around wildly at the suddenly quiet crowd. “I found my mom.”

 

* * *

 

It’s Abby who realises the flaw and chases Gibbs down as they’re trying to wrangle their section of nervous volunteers. One bonus of giving the crowd of people an actual job to do—no one has the attention to spare for the cluster of vampires following Tony like nervous ducklings. The atmosphere has turned from fear to a hopeful kind of focus, people who were hours ago shoving and fighting in fear now turning to their neighbour and offering them a hand. They’ve got a theory going that if they have enough magically resistant people to take the initial sting of the wall being breached, maybe those who aren’t so resistant will be able to help too. It’s a theory. It’s worth a shot.

Except…

“Gibbs?” Abby asks, bouncing nervously as she notes again that there are some helicopters that were distantly circling now heading closer. “Question: if we pull all the dead from that circle out of the circle, is that going to summon the Wild Hunt?”

“Dunno, Abs, why?”

“I mean…” She pauses and looks back to the helicopters. “As horrifying and uncontrollable as they are, I think we might need them.”

Gibbs pauses at that, turning away from the people he’s wrangling and looking up at the helicopters too, his face scrunching a bit.

Even over the sound of the crowd, they hear a distant roar.

When Gibbs touches her arm and begins to sign a message to her, she knows this isn’t going to be good. He wouldn’t be masking it like this if it was.

_The thing you know, will that help us here?_

She swallows. The thing she knows, she assumes, meaning necromancy. And if Gibbs is asking her to consider necromancy. _If the shield is gone, I can probably tap the leftover rune,_ she signs back carefully. _Yes. With Ducky._

He nods grimly. _Worst case if we summon them?_

_They kill us all?_ She doesn’t even try to hide her worry as she signs that back, or her almost-grin when he cocks an eyebrow and responds.

_Worst case if we don’t?_

_The Banes kill us all._ After that, it seems kind of obvious how it all ends. Abby hopes Echo has a plan for their end-game because she sure doesn’t. _Do I do it?_

“Yeah, Abby,” he says. “Yeah. Do it.” With a lurch of her gut, she notes that he’s looking at Tony as he says that. “We’re pulling the dead outta the land of the dead. I get a feeling they’ll be here anyway—may as well open the door.”

Abby guesses he’s right. At least this way they can ensure the Hunt doesn’t break any windows on the way in.

She goes to find Ducky and tell him their plan.

 

* * *

 

“Are you sure we can do that, Abigail?” Ducky asks her, his eyes skimming the parts of the rune they’ve unveiled. “We can’t even see the entire circle—any wrong slip on our part will be fatal.”

“I think so?” she answers, hoping she’s right. “From what Mikal said, it’s pretty self-functioning once activated. It’s just a gate—we’re only needed to call them through. And we can do that.”

Ducky looks at her then, really looks at her.

“Are you aware of what the repercussions of that could be?” he asks gently.

She is. They’re necromancers too, technically. Maybe they’ve never raised the dead or pulled power from blood, but they’ve still messed with the stuff they shouldn’t. They’ve still got those marks on them. And, beyond them, they don’t know what else the Hunt will target. There’s Tony and there’s Kate and even Tim… any of them could find themselves hunted.

But, if they don’t, they’ll be killed anyway.

“I am,” she replies finally. “So is Gibbs. I always said I was going to change the world.”

Ducky laughs, stepping back from his place in line and taking her hand, letting someone else take over for him. They’ll need his strength. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go and wait with Ziva. As injured as she is, I do not think it would be a good idea for her to step in.”

“How do we know when to act?” Abby asks, following him to where Ziva is sitting as a real grumpy looking cheetah, her fur all ruffled and mad and tail lashing.

“We wait. I am not completely decided that this is not playing into the necromancers’ hands—we may stop their secondary plan, only to fall into an ultimate one. Unless our hands are forced, we will wait.”

That sounds good. What’re the chances that their hands will be forced?

Abby settles by Ziva, watching as the line of people prepares to touch the foggy wall. Maybe this will just resolve itself… maybe they won’t even need to step in.

After all, she’s an optimist.

 

* * *

 

Abby feels it when the call comes for everyone along the wall, enough people that Abby can’t actually see from here where the line of them ends, to try and push through. There’s a loud cry of voices, a smell of something magical burning, and then the oddest sensation like her ears are trying to pop with some great, muffled pressure.

Above them, the walls of fog fade for a moment. There’s a sound that’s glacial and slow, the pained cries from people against the wall changing to excited cheers as they feel the wall giving way under their hands. But just for a moment, before it turns back to pained against as the wall kicks back. Abby watches Gibbs as he steps in to take the place of someone who steps back, wincing as he does. McGee hasn’t even flinched. Neither has Tony or, amazingly, Jimmy.

But that’s where their progress ends. The wall doesn’t give way, letting them reach into the fog and bring people out. They just stall there. Abby covers her mouth, worry making her twitchy, feeling Ducky next to her tense.

“Uh oh,” he murmurs. Abby turns to look where he’s looking, only to find that he’s looking _behind_ them. She looks too, seeing dragons wheeling closer. Four of them land, people scattering from underneath them, Gibbs vanishing into the crowd around their paws to speak to them. For a moment, their trilling speech is all Abby can focus on. Only for a moment though. The very next, she hears screaming begin from the very back of the crowd, and the sound of dragons roaring.

“Jethro!” Ducky calls as Gibbs strides past, military personnel from all along the line peeling away and sprinting back with their weapons out.

“Get ready,” Gibbs calls back without slowing. “They’re here.”

They’re, Abby assumes, means the Banes. And they’re all pressed against the wall, like lobsters in an aquarium. Before she can call out to him to be careful, he’s gone. He’s gone, and the wall is still there.

They’re all going to die.

There’s another roar, this one close enough that Abby’s bladder pinches tight. It’s close enough that the fear of that roar is beginning to trickle into the people there, some people dropping to the ground within the crowd and curling up small, others trying to pull them out of the crush of people. Other people are beginning to push against the barricades, like a press of cattle thinking of stampeding. Along the wall itself, the line of people trying to force the shield is starting to break up, people looking around frantically for help or escape.

But the next roar is drowned out; the dragons didn’t leave when Gibbs did. Instead, they’re singing. Abby notes this and then forgets to note anything else, she’s so captivated by the song.

“Keep pushing!” she distantly hears someone call, realising in some small part of her mind that the dragons are singing two separate, glorious songs—one, a calming spell that her own magic recognises and accepts, the other a spell aimed at shattering the wall where it’s weakest.

The popping feeling comes back, growing, and Abby shakes off the calming spell and looks. The crowd is staring, transfixed, at the dragons but against the wall, the wall is beginning to ripple strangely under the hands against it. Fog begins to leak through those ripples, twining around the people there. The dragons sing louder.

Kate appears, stepping out from one trail of fog with Echo at her heels and a line of spirits following.

And, just like that, there’s a surge of people moving towards that line of spirits, holding out their hands and clasping those of the dead, drawing them away from the line of broken wall. More and more cracks appear, more people reaching out for the spirits who appear at those broken places. The trickle becomes a flood; suddenly, there’s the strangest sound that’s the perfect cross between glass breaking and ice crashing and all along the wall, spirits are appearing, catching the hands held out to them.

“They can’t cross alone!” Kate is yelling before she plunges back in. “Tell everyone—you have to reach in for them! Think of people you know, people you’ve lost. They can _feel_ you—they’ll find you!”

“Can we cross?” someone else yells. As that sounds out, people try. Some find that the fog is impassable to them. Some vanish into it. Abby realises; the shield is gone. All there is now is the land of the living and the land of the dead, and nothing separating the two; under their feet, the runes pulse grossly. Angrily. Abby can feel the power they hold trying to spread out and claim the land around them, trying to spread the dead paths right into the living world of DC. The circle is like a dam of the dead, threatening to spill over and flood them—but they’re releasing the pressure. Even as she realises this, the dead are dispersing into the crowd, wandering lost and confused among the living. There’s more living then ghosts right now, more solid bodies with colour and hearts then the wispy nothing of their faded spirits, but that’s going to change soon.

Ziva and Ducky have both moved forward in order to help, not the living, but the dead. They’re scared and lost and confused, Abby realises. The living barely know what’s going on—the dead are completely lost.

“Hey,” she says gently, crouching and reaching out for the ghost of a little girl who runs past. “Hi, I’m Abby. Do you want to stand by me until we find someone you know?”

“Yes, please,” whispers the spirit, huddling close to her leg and bringing the strangest feeling of cold-warm-pressure with her. “I want my mom.”

Abby hugs her close, about to tell her they’ll look for her—but she doesn’t get the chance.

The roars are louder and there’s a surge of panic not even the dragons can stop. When she turns, she can see something in the air. Another Bane, this one winged. She can’t tell what.

But it’s coming straight for them.

“Abigail,” calls Ducky, appearing beside her.

“I know,” she says. Deep breath, Abby. Deep breath. “Where do we go?”

But she already knows the answer. “I’ll come back for you, okay?” she promises the little ghost girl. “Wait by my friend, this cheetah—her name is Ziva, okay? And I’ll come back.”

With that said, Abby squares her shoulders, turns her back on everything she loves, and walks bravely with Ducky through the wall and into the paths of the dead.

 

* * *

 

As soon as they step in, the rune responds to their magic. It surges to meet them like an excited puppy, so wanting to be completed that at a single touch, Abby knows exactly what she needs to do to finish the spell. To bring the two worlds together. To have unfathomable power.

She only realises after that she loses some time in the quiet and the fog just considering that potential. To let go. To do as the rune asks. To destroy their home for untold gains.

But someone takes her hand, fingers threading tight and pulling her back to herself. It’s quiet and still here, just the gentle whisper of almost invisible souls passing on their way to the voices calling them against the wall. Abby blinks herself back to her brain and looks up to find Kate standing beside her, holding her hand tight. Echo is there too. When Abby turns to look back at where they’ve come from, there’s nothing but a black wall lit up with points of light, like flashing stars. And, where each point flashes, if she concentrates, she can hear the voices calling.

_“They call their loved ones to them,”_ Echo says, looking as well at the wall. But, even as they’re watching, the lights begin to wink out one by one. _“We must hurry. They’re in terrible danger.”_

“Come along, Abigail,” Ducky says, taking her other hand. “We need to find the centre.”

And into the fog they go, the silence swallowing them.

 

* * *

 

“What now?” Abby asks when they look down to find the middle of the rune beneath their feet.

Ducky sits down there, holding his hands up to her. “We call them,” he says firmly. “And we hope they come, without asking too much of us.”

Abby looks at Kate, her heart hammering fast and mouth dry with fear. “Stay with me?” she whispers. She’s not going to lie; she’s _terrified._ This might be the last thing she ever does, and it might destroy everyone she loves… or it might save them. Those aren’t odds she likes.

The fog is thicker than ever, pulling at their hair and clothes, but Kate still sits beside her and says, “With you all the way, Abby.”

All Abby can hear is howling.


	20. Us and our Choices

Tony’s not sure how this is his life anymore. What the hell is going on?

He’d walked down into the depths where the vampires huddled together, those that still lived, and he’d given them an option: stay down here and rot in the dark or come with him and fight for the light. An option, and a warning. If they stayed and appeared above ground to fight for those that would see his city fall, then Tony would take them out without pause or mercy.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” one of them had retorted, black eyes wide. Tony knows him. He’s pretty sure they went to school together. “The closer it gets, the more we can hear them—they’re in our heads, man. Whispering.”

“No one’s in your head but yourself,” Tony had snapped. He knows this intimately. It’s the same voice he’d had to push down before, the one that had told him to pull Gibbs from the waves and drain him dry. The same one that had goaded him to kill Ziva instead of taking the bare minimum to keep him going, even though he’s pretty sure that would have ended with him dead instead. She’d come to him expecting to have to fight—but she’d still made the choice to come. She’d still taken his hand.

“But the urges—”

“They’re _you,_ you idiot.” He hadn’t had the time to be kind, Senior silent behind him. “That’s what makes us different to _them_.” At them, he’d pointed furiously to his father, seeing Senior wince. “This is easy for them—they know who and what they are. Us? We’ve been shoved into bodies that don’t want us—we’re human, and human means that we have _choice_. You can be exactly what they wanted you to be, or you can be so much more. You think I don’t hear them? The urges, the wants? I’ve felt it _all,_ and I’m still here asking you to come with me to make sure this never happens to another kid—to make sure that we have a tomorrow to ensure that.”

He hadn’t really expected them to follow him out of there.

But they had.

And here he is, with a bunch of vampires in a crowd that could turn on them at any minute. But, they don’t. And, for a second, there’s a glint of hope. The vampires he’s brought with him help to pull the souls from the circle surrounding them, moments of silence when the souls that come to them are the child versions of their very selves—Tony helps a soul through and is only a little stunned to realise he’s holding Sammy’s hand, the little spirit smiling trustingly up at him.

But there’s a distant roar. Tony turns, seeing ripples of fear moving towards them.

Fuck. The monsters, the Banes. Whatever they are. They’re here.

He runs towards a voice he recognises, finding Gibbs pushing through to join those who are going to fruitlessly try to push the Banes back. “Gibbs!”

Gibbs turns, pausing as he looks beyond Tony and below his hip height. Shit. Sammy’s followed him. When Tony skids to a stop and Gibbs finally looks up at him, there’s grief in his eyes.

“If you’re going to fight, I’ve got your six,” Tony says firmly, reaching down to ruffle Sammy’s hair. “You’re not going there alone.”

Gibbs just looks at him. “We could die,” he says finally, the roar getting louder. “Probably gonna.”

Tony shrugs. What’s being dead? Shit, he’s died like four times by now, right?

“Always knew you’d get me killed,” he says. “No better way to die. Semper fi.”

“Ooh-rah,” Gibbs replies, a rare smile crossing his face. And, for the first time since the night Gibbs was taken from them, so long ago, they turn to face the end together.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs is sure this is it. When the Banes come, something winged swooping overhead to clash against the screeching dragons and another one slithering wetly down a nearby building, he doesn’t hesitate; with Tony at his side, he simply shifts into a wolf and charges forward through the throngs of terrified people and frantic spirits. The screams of the Banes are horrifying, it’s all he can do not to drop, but they’re not aimed at him. He keeps going, eyes locked on a group of refugees curled helplessly on the ground, leaping over them and snarling at the creature they face, until now hidden by the bank of cars parked haphazardly behind the crowd.

“Oh man,” Tony murmurs, appearing beside him and staring at the Bane they’re facing. It’s unexpected, barely the same height as Gibbs and horrifyingly human. “What is that?”

It’s not as hard to tell as the question makes it seem, Gibbs thinks. Tony just doesn’t want to accept the answer. The bottom half of the creature, even under the rot and mess of its broken body, is visibly a half-grown buck. Spindly legs and russet fur with a tail that doesn’t flick like it would have in life, the creature’s delicate hooves shifting as it turns to look at Gibbs with empty, human eyes. Human eyes in a human face, skin blackened and sloughed, hands mangled where the flesh has torn away. A human face atop a human torso, thin and buckled as though not strong enough to hold its own weight anymore, the stained and torn clothes it’s wearing are all that seem to hold the broken body together. Where the human torso becomes deer, it’s a mess of rotted flesh, where previous attackers have aimed to try and take it out where it’s weak. Even as Gibbs puts this together in his brain, some small part of his mind registering how narrow and thin it—him, it’s a male, a boy—is, the creature’s human face twists into an inhuman snarl, blunt teeth yellow, red, and black with filth and blood, lips blackened, lowering his head and threatening them with the half-grown antlers he sports from a head of matted, tangled curls.

_“He’s an arietaur,”_ he says, heart sinking as the boy’s nostrils flare. _“And a child…”_

There’s no way he’s older than sixteen.

And they’re going to have to kill him because he will definitely kill them if they don’t.

“Fuck,” says Tony, who can’t hear Gibbs’s horror. He has his gun out and up in a second as the arietaur rears slightly and gallops towards them, enough strength in those four spindly legs that if one connects with Tony’s body, it’ll be like being hit with something twice as large. They’re supremely fast, dangerously strong, and Gibbs considers shifting back just long enough to warn Tony of the deceptive danger before the man is unloading his clip into the boy’s head.

The Bane just keeps on coming, shaking off the brain-shattering damage like it’s nothing. Gibbs dives out of the way of those hooves, hearing cement crack under a crushing blow. He misses Tony too, the vampire quicker to dart in a semi-circle around it. Gibbs snaps as the boy canters past, trying for the tendons in the back of his hind legs. It’s almost the end of him; the boy whirls with deadly speed and snarls, blood sheeting down to patter on the asphalt around Gibbs as he rears and strikes with both powerful front legs. Gibbs dodges, and the hooves cleave a jagged hole in the metal of the car door behind him.

“Jesus,” Tony yelps, realising their absolute danger. “Get behind it!”

And, with that, he’s darting in front of the boy, almost in reach of those antlers, catching his attention. Gibbs winces. Tony’s always been a clown, now he’s using that to his advantage; the rodeo clown and Gibbs is the matador, slinking low behind a car until the boy’s attention is fully on chasing Tony down. As soon as he has his back to Gibbs, muscles bunching as he prepares to leap, Gibbs strikes. Darts out, opens his jaws wide, and hopes to hell it doesn’t kick back and rip his jaw from his face.

It’s not the hooves he should have worried about.

The Bane screams. The bullets Tony had slammed into his forehead might have ripped through his eyes and brain, but it’s not like he’s using them anyway—his vocal cords and mouth are intact. It screams, and Gibbs forgets everything except to be afraid.

Everything is cold, everything is horrifying, and he knows he’s going to die. Cringing and slinking to the ground, it’s a fear like he’s never felt before. Worse than the pit, worse than losing Tony, worse than the first time he’d been shot at. It’s bone deep and turning him into ice. He can’t move.

He can’t think.

He’s an animal cringing and waiting to die, seeing it turn towards him and accepting his fate. Unmoving and unwilling to, he watches numbly as it shakes its head and moves forward, no one screaming in their vicinity anymore. They’re all watching too.

A rock smacks the boy in the head, his neck buckling under the blow before he whirls with another paralysing screech, half-rearing and charging forward. Gibbs manages to lift his head, barely, and stares blankly as Tony leaps out of the way of the charge.

“Boss!” he screams, barely dodging another kick. “Get up!”

The boy screams again, hoof crashing down. Tony doesn’t flinch.

“Boss! Come on—I need help here!”

And Gibbs can’t move, so he does nothing but watch as the arietaur catches Tony as the vampire tries to leap a car to escape. He catches him mid-slide across the hood, front hooves braced on the wheel as he lurches forward and slams those antlers into Tony’s back, lifting him easily with a neck that shouldn’t be able to hold that weight and throwing him backwards like he’s a ragdoll.

It’s a stop-motion parody of flight. Gibbs watches Tony’s body curve through the air, almost horrendously graceful, before slamming down hard on another car, metal buckling and glass shattering, sliding down the hood to crumple, stunned, on the ground.

_“Get up,”_ Gibbs finds himself sending weakly, the fear beginning to fade, but not enough to free him. Not enough to thaw his terror.

But Tony just struggles for a second before going limp, too winded and stunned to stand.

The boy trots over to him, snorting once before rearing and lingering in the air with his front hooves pawing. Going to strike down. Gibbs knows what that will look like—Tony won’t stand a chance.

In that heart-stopping moment of realising that Tony will die if he doesn’t move, the fear stops mattering. He tears himself up and out of it, charging forward on silent paws as he strikes at the slender hind legs balancing the rest of that dangerous body.

One snap: one tendon. The boy stumbles sideways with a scream, trying to drop to four legs as suddenly one ceases to support him, blood streaming from the severed Achilles. His other leg lashes out—Gibbs catches it and _rips_.

Down he topples onto his side, Tony managing to roll away with a wheeze in order to avoid a front leg smashing his hip. Clumsy on the ground with both back legs unable to take his weight anymore, the Bane tries to twist around on his human torso to scream at Gibbs, but he’s quicker now, and more volatile. He goes for the back of the neck, biting down hard and reversing, dragging the prodigious weight along the asphalt, the boy making a soft howl of pain that’s heartbreakingly human as his legs kick uselessly. Gibbs keeps dragging, even as a hand snaps around and bites into his shoulder; blunt, torn nails sinking in deep into his flesh and muscle and tearing hard. The boy’s other hand is trapped under his side—there’s only so much damage he can do.

And, when Gibbs feels the spine give way under his crushing jaws, he lets go and springs back, panting hard and coughing blood from his mouth, feeling a chunk of his shoulder stay behind with the crumpled form of the arietaur. Blood drips from the open wound. His lungs are screaming from the strain of holding on so tight, his muscles bunched ready to move.

The arietaur doesn’t move. Tony appears by his side, walking crooked with his arm around himself, blood dripping from his elbow from the tears in his back where the antlers had caught him despite his vest. They watch, tense and waiting, barely aware of the clashing sounds of continued combat and fear from all around them.

But the Bane snorts, struggling up onto his front legs with his head hanging on a loose neck that doesn’t support him anymore. He staggers up, somehow, turning to face them and lurching slowly forwards. They didn’t stop him.

They just can’t stop him.

Gibbs groans, preparing to spring again. They’re going to die. They’re absolutely going to die.

The Bane comes for them slowly, Tony’s hand coming down to rest on Gibbs’s uninjured shoulder, and that’s when the Wild Hunt arrives.

 

* * *

 

There is nothing more important right now than standing strong. Ducky is absolutely aware of this. With Abigail trembling under his arm and Caitlin crouched beside them staring at the billowing wave of what appears—incorrectly—to be simply fog rolling towards them, there is no other goal in his mind than to protect the young women he finds in his charge. And they are truly terrified.

As they should be. What they are facing is a fear lost from this world for a millennium.

The silence of this dead place is dispelling by the multitudinous baying of hounds untold. Ghostly howls and yelps ebb and flow with the fog, muffled one minute and the next sounding as though they are being swallowed by a monstrous pack of hounds. Among the hounds, hoofbeats sound. Like drums narrating the Hunt’s arrival, Ducky hunkers down and pulls Abigail closer. He refuses to blink. He is fae. He will not blink as they approach, even as he looks to the ground and says, “Don’t look them in the eye.” Obediently, Abigail and Caitlin both duck their heads and Ducky curses inwardly—they should have alerted everyone, Jethro and the others, to never look the Wild Hunt in the eye. But it’s too late now, and he hopes the instinctual response to hide away from something so unknown will keep his family safe.

And here they are.

Hooves overhead, the wind of their passing presses down on them. It is as though the coldest wind imaginable is gusting overhead, a heavy, dangerous wind weighed down with something heavier than any storm. Heavy paws pad past, hounds snuffing wetly around them. Ducky keeps his gaze locked on the ground, Abigail turning her head into his chest with her heart slamming in her own, as something large and haunting slips by them.

Caitlin’s eyes are shut and she is deathly pale when Ducky glances at her, her mouth moving soundlessly. Prayer. She is praying.

“Caitlin,” he murmurs, his voice clear despite the creatures moving around them. Ghostlier than any of the spirits had ever been. “Did I ever tell you why I sound of bells?”

She looks at him without looking, her eyes still closed. Just following the sound of his voice. “No,” she says finally, wincing as something brushes very close to her. Echo has vanished. A pity—the friendly hound would have been a reminder that, for Caitlin at least, these creatures pose very little threat. “Is now really the time?”

“I can’t think of a better one than now,” he answers honestly. It is integral that he chases away the fear that he knows is clouding their thoughts. “Mine is not a kindly nature, my dear. Kelpies are fae, and fae are never inherently kind. It is in our nature to be many things—dangerous, capricious. Awesome, in the sense that we inspire awe, an overwhelming feeling of fear, reverence, admiration. Many, many years ago—longer than any of you, except perhaps our friends galloping overhead, remember, the Wild Hunt was not the only fae that the world trembled under the might of. People sought to please us, to tempt us into being kindly with gifts and benefactions. Some used protections against us, those who believed that we could not be charmed into kindliness.”

“Is this a confession, doc?” Caitlin asks, smiling tightly. There’s a scream nearby and she winces. Ducky sneaks a glance, realising with a thrill that the wall is gone but the fog remains—they lie upon the dusty ground of the outskirts of DC, no sky visible overhead through the fog. But many creatures move around them, people and spirits and huntsmen alike.

“In a way, yes,” he answers quietly, swallowing hard. It is impossible to tell what is happening outside their small ring of visibility. “Some wore bells to defend against the more malevolent of us. In the day, I found it very difficult to approach the sound, depending on my purpose for approaching. Then, I met a boy.”

“Come on, Duck, you expect us to believe you were some terrible thing?” Abigail peeks out at him as she says this, mouth twitching. He doesn’t smile back. She’ll learn one day: the longer lived the creature, the longer their history. Long histories are never clean. But her heart has slowed and she looks calmer, the hounds and horses around them quieting as her fear quietens too.

“I was working in a refugee camp at the time, as a medical doctor,” Ducky continues firmly. “This boy, just a lad, wore a necklace of bells for protection. It wasn’t so long ago, not really. Within a human lifetime. Not many at this point bothered with bells, and it didn’t protect him from the person who hurt him, a torturer… I did not hurt him directly. No, by this point I had long turned away from my dangerous nature and towards the man you know today. And this boy looked at me and saw beyond my fae heart and asked for my help—he asked me for two things. One, to stop the pain he was suffering through, the immense damage inflicted upon him by the man who bells could not save him from…” Abigail is silent, still. Caitlin is watching him. Around them, it is almost silent. The Hunt is moving on, but he still finishes his tale quietly. “Two, he asked if I would ensure that his bells never silenced. They were a family heirloom, you understand. Passed down for generations on the belief that their sound would always keep their descendants safe… and he was the last. I was compliant in his death that day, this boy whose name I still don’t know, but I have been compliant in his memory ever since. His bells remind me of the heavy burden I carry and will always carry—the choice to be a man and not a monster, no matter what I was born to be.”

“Ducky…” murmurs Caitlin.

A shadow falls on them, thick and heavy. Ducky sighs. He’d expected this. Abigail’s head snaps around, looking up and staring into the Huntsman’s eyes with an “oh.”

“I see you’re here for Abigail and me,” Ducky says, standing slowly and feeling all the weight of his years. Just to remind himself of what’s at stake, he makes sure that bells sound as he stands. And, without blinking, he meets the Huntsman’s eyes. They’re blue and cold and nothing alive. To the women, he says firmly, “Stay down here, I must ask you.” To the Huntsman, he warns, “I will not let you take her.”

He doubts he’ll be able to save either of them, in the end. It’s why they’re so vulnerable to the Hunt. Just a simple touch will sever their souls from their body, killing them instantaneously. It is why the bitten vampires and Banes offer such a challenge—their bodies will continue fighting in a way Ducky’s, or Abigail’s, simply cannot.

But he’s making the choice to try.

With a snarl of his own, he sheds his human disguise and stands before the Huntsman sent to destroy them as a humpbacked, faerie horse, sharp teeth bared. He will fight until he falls, and grieve only Abigail’s loss and the silencing of the unnamed boy’s bells.

This is his choice.

 

* * *

 

Tim learns something about himself this day: he’s tougher than he’s ever given himself credit for.

When the Banes scream, everyone falls. He’s among the crowd, trying to push through to assist the men and women who are going to fight the unholy beasts before they strike the mostly helpless civilians—mostly because there’s not just law enforcement creating a ragged line to protect those behind them. There are civilians too, mages and elves and anyone with any of kind of magic, all trying to fight to save the people around them. But, when the Banes fall upon them and begin to scream, every one of those people freezes. Rabbits in the path of the truck barrelling down on them.

Except for Tim. Sure, he’s scared as heck of the monsters and their undead eyes, but he’s not frozen. When his father had built him, he clearly hadn’t added whatever part of the brain the Banes are using to hunt. He’s not alone though. The crowd falls with a wave of screams and sobs, on their hands and knees or curled up small as they’re stalked, and those that still stand, stand out. Tim, for one.

The vampires, for another.

“Distract them!” Tim finds himself yelling to any vampire near him, seeing them stare wide-eyed at him and wondering if they’re going to listen. “Keep them away from the refugees!”

And, for whatever reason, they do. Tim runs, desperate to find his team as the dragons and the vampires do their damnedest to stop a slaughter. He finds Gibbs, and he finds Tony—standing alone against a Bane that’s heartbreakingly human—and then help arrives.

Well, help of some kind.

The first they know of it, as Tim skids to a stop metres behind Tony, is a breeze. It’s stunningly cold and seems to sap all the colour from the world, and all the sound too. Almost as one, they turn to stare at the wall falling behind them, crumbling from the top down and letting loose a billow of fog that chokes the day and brings nothing but a dank kind of light.

And then they’re surrounded. The fog is so thick that Tim can’t hear a damn thing anymore, not a thing. He backs up nervously, not sure where he is or what’s happening around him, bumping against someone warm and turning to find Tony grabbing onto his arm to stop from falling over.

“Where’s that Bane?” Tony asks, looking back and forth frantically. “What the hell is going on?”

Something huge emerges from the fog and Tim yelps, whirling with his weapon and almost shooting Gibbs, who eyes him reprovingly.

“Gibbs, where’s—”

Hooves. They hear hooves, and the Bane appears, staggering towards them. It’s hugely injured, its head hanging loose and back legs dragging oddly, but still, it comes, lunging from the fog to grab for Tony’s head. Tim reacts without thinking, grabbing it by one hanging antler and using every inch of strength he possesses to boldly fling it up and over onto a car with a crunch that’s incredibly loud in this new silent world; it’s a show of strength he’s always kept hidden and, when he looks back to Tony afterwards, Tony is staring open-mouthed at him.

“It startled me,” he says, feeling embarrassed.

“Atta _boy,_ Tim,” is all Tony replies, grinning widely.

Suddenly, the Bane howls. It’s a roar of anger and fear; they turn to it and find that it’s not alone anymore. There’s a man on horseback who seems to be made of the very fog itself standing before it. Even as they watch, it draws a sword, the sound of the sword being unsheathed painfully shrill to their numbed ears. Looking at the man on the horse hurts Tim’s eyes, his vision blurring as he tries to see what it looks like.

Someone grabs his shirt, yanking him down onto his knees, into a huddle with Tony and Gibbs. Gibbs, human, holding Tim tight by his collar as there’s another chilling gust of cold and the world around them becomes noisy again, but this time with hoofbeats and the sound of dogs baying and panting.

“Don’t look ‘em in the eyes,” Gibbs tells them both firmly, his own skin grey with fear. “That pisses them off.”

“Do we just stay here and wait it out?” Tony asks, wincing as a horse gallops past with a snort that’s ghostly.

“No.” Gibbs lets go of Tim’s shirt, shaking his head. “Tim, stay low, eyes averted—make sure people are staying down, keeping their heads down. Tony do the same—and find Abby and Ducky!”

Abby.

Oh god, _Abby._

“Are they going to take Abby?” Tim asks, fear that’s worse than anything the Bane inflicted suddenly choking him. “And Ducky?”

“Not if we have anything to do with it. Now, _move.”_

 

* * *

 

Abby’s never been more scared, but she’s also never stood by when someone she loves is in trouble. Despite Ducky telling her to stay put, and despite her surety that this will probably end with her dead or taken or whatever it is that the Huntsmen do to the people they hunt, she ignores him telling her to stay and stands by his side with her hand resting on his weirdly warm flank. Ducky watches her with his equine face, expression clearly disapproving despite the horsiness of it all, and she smiles at him before facing her death and scowling as best she can.

“You’re not taking _either_ of us,” she says bravely, pulling up a ball of witchfire in her hand and hoping that someone feeds Bert for her if this all goes wrong.

There’s a flicker of light by her side as Kate moves up beside her. “Wait!” she yells as the Huntsman doesn’t even bother saying anything to them, just walks forward with his creepy eyes still uber creepy and locked on Ducky. “You’re the Wild Hunt, right? You know Echo? You have to know her—ask her! You’re not supposed to take them, they’ve done nothing wrong!”

Uh oh. Kate doesn’t know that they learned necromancy… Abby’s not sure she wants to be the one to tell her, especially not right now.

“Kate, maybe you should let us deal with this,” Abby suggests. She doesn’t know much about what they do, but she’s pretty sure it involves the spirit and, well, that’s all Kate is. The last thing they need is their newly resurrected friend being caught in the crossfire. And… well, maybe Abby kind of deserves this, a tiny bit. She’s messed up bad. Kate _doesn’t._ Neither does Ducky. “Hey, spooky! What if I choose to go with you? Will you leave Ducky alone?”

Ducky snorts angrily, trying to push between her and the Huntsman with his sides heaving. She ignores him.

“He wouldn’t have learned necromancy if it wasn’t for me—so it’s my soul that’s messed up, right? I’m the gross one. So, take me and leave him. That’s only fair!”

The Huntsman pauses, eyeing them both. Abby wishes he’d talk. At least it would make him more… well, human, despite him definitely not being that.

She wishes Gibbs was here.

Finally, it steps forward, towards her. She braces. Okay, this is it. No more Gibbs, no more Timmy, no more Caf-Pows or music or—

“Wait!”

That voice is familiar.

Wait.

That’s _Tony_.

Abby whirls as Tony skids up, grabbing her arm and yanking her back. She lets herself be yanked, mostly because oh boy is she glad to see him, but also because he’s far, far stronger than she is. Also, he’s bleeding. Shoved behind him as he stands in front, she stares at his back and realises it’s a gory mess. What the hell happened to him!?

“You’re not here for her,” Tony is saying firmly, backing up with her stumbling behind him and the Huntsman still approaching. “Hey, come on, creep! Stop! Let me talk! She’s not who you’re here for—you’re here to restore balance or some shit, right? Well, Abby _is_ balanced—just because she knows dark magic doesn’t make her any less light—magic is both!”

It pauses. Eyes on Tony, empty sockets that are so dark that Abby thinks they might be actually swallowing the light around them.

Tony stammers as he continues, thrown by that gaze. “I’m dark,” he manages. “I’m as dark as they get. I’ve killed people, shit. I _am_ the body of someone dead, someone murdered—but I’ve saved people too. We’re not like the necromancers you’re here for, we’ve never used black magic to do all _this_.” And he gestures around wildly at the mess around them, bodies and the rune and frightened spirits still huddled along with the few people who haven’t fled. “We’re here because we’re trying to fix it, just like you. You can see that, right? Something in you tells you who you need to take and who you need to leave—if you look closely at us, you’ll realise we’re not throwing anything out of balance, _please._ Kate, tell them!”

“It’s true,” Kate says, appearing next to him. “You know me—I’m with Echo. They’re the people who helped you. They called you. Don’t you owe them for that?”

The Huntsman stares. It’s close enough now that Abby can see the weave of fabric on its rough shirt and see the dirt ingrained into its skin.

Finally, it reaches out. It’s going to touch her. She hears Kate cry out, Tony snarl, and then she closes her eyes.

The fingers brush her cheek. They’re like ice, leaving a trail of numb behind her.

Something leaves her at that moment. There’s a gust of _cold_ , biting deep into her body and ripping a piece of her out of her chest. It’s not a visible piece—she’s not left bleeding—but it _hurts_. She screams, falling down with her friends’ cries echoing around her. Distantly, as she curls up small and hugs herself tight, she’s aware of Ducky screaming too.

But the cold recedes. She’s left alive.

And the pain fades quickly.

“Abby, Abby!” Hands on her shoulders, shaking her, forcing her face up to look into Tony’s eyes. “Are you okay?”

She smiles at him, leaning forward and kissing his cheek as a burst of _alive_ slams into her. The Huntsman is gone. The fog is dissipating. They’re still together, still alive. And the whatever is gone from her… she feels lighter. Cleaner. Like the Huntsman has taken something dark and cold from somewhere in her chest, something she doesn’t need. It’s not her magic—that’s still there. It’s not her heart, because she still loves these people.

And if it’s not either of those things, she doesn’t give a damn. Anything else is worth it to survive.

“I’ve missed you,” she tells Tony honestly and then, as the sun slowly filters down onto them, begins to cry.

 

* * *

 

Jim’s got one thing on his mind as the fog begins to fade, leaving him sitting huddled with a bunch of shell-shocked strangers. They’re untouched by the Banes and untouched by the Hunt, but still utterly stunned.

“Is it over?” someone asks, but Jim just shrugs and thinks of Echo. He doesn’t even care if she had anything to do with this anymore—he just wants his dog and he wants his friend and he wants to start putting his life back together.

“Stay here,” he tells them. Bizarrely, even though he’s barely knee high, they listen, staying put as he stands on wobbly legs and walks out of the alley they’re sheltering in, finding himself standing on the street looking around at the destruction around him. Abandoned cars and bodies and shattered buildings. There’s a dead Bane in the centre of the street, other bodies scattered around it. The hood of the car he walks past dizzily is caved in, an almost perfect hoofprint right through the windshield. Other people are staggering out of hiding, looking just as stunned as he feels. Spirits are still everywhere, some sitting and staring at the destruction, some walking and speaking to survivors, offering them comfort or pulling them out of hiding and pointing them to the flashing lights of emergency services. Others yet are still and silent, almost faded in the sunlight.

And he stands alone, distantly aware that he could find Kate if he wanted but too shocked to do so. Is it over?

He thinks it might be. The sun is filtering down. No one is screaming anymore. The wall is gone.

But there are so many dead…

There’s a bark and he spins, panicked for a second before he realises who it is. “Echo!” he yells, catching her mid-jump and hugging her tight, clinging to her with his face buried in her fur. “You’re okay! You’re still here!”

She wags her tail furiously, licking his face and whining, paws patting the ground around him.

“Where are they?” he asks her, knowing full well that she can understand him. She’s not just a dog, as bizarre as that is when he thinks of the puppy she’d been when he got her—was she always what she is now, or did she become more when he wasn’t watching one day? “The Wild Hunt? Are they coming back? Are you going too?”

But Echo just gives him a reproachful look and takes his hand in her gentle mouth. _“Never mind that,”_ says a voice in his head that’s older than it should be. _“Come on. Let’s go find your family.”_

 

* * *

 

Ziva has never seen anything like this. The crowd that had pushed and fought so ferociously before the Hunt had swept through them is now quiet and mournful. The hum of voices is deafening after the silence the fog had brought, but it is still a muted loud. The spirits remain, many of them clinging close to those they knew in life. Ziva limps through them, looking for her team, and some small part of her grieves because there is no Tali here among the remaining dead. But then, she would not be. These dead, the fact that they are all so American gives it away. They are localised. People who died in DC, not in Israel. But still, she is saddened. To have spoken to her sister once more, just one last time…

Because that is what is happening. The fear of the Wild Hunt is receding as their hoofbeats have. Now, people are regrouping, regathering, and they are finally welcoming the dead. With the fear of the wall and the chaos of the Hunt gone, attention is finally turning to those who were gone and who are gone no longer.

She finds Gibbs, standing tall and strong in the crowd. The rest of the team are with him, Tony hugging Abby tight, Ducky sitting with Kate’s hand on his shoulder. Even as Ziva lingers back, watching, she sees Tim sweep Abby up into a hug, and Palmer appear with his hound at his side. Only Gibbs sees her standing there, stepping around two spirits to walk towards her.

“You need to get that leg looked at,” he tells her, looking down at her cheetah shape. “Gonna wreck it more.”

_“The medical staff are busy enough right now, I think,”_ Ziva sends back quietly, aware he cannot hear her. Many are injured. Many are dead. DC will take a long time to recover from this day. _“We should help, where we can.”_

Tony is coming up behind them, his eyes on Gibbs and the most serious expression she has ever seen written across his features. Gibbs cannot see him, see how his throat bobs twice as he struggles to speak, see him brace and finally choke out, “Gibbs.”

Gibbs turns. There is a long moment of them looking at each other, the vampire and the wolf, and Ziva waits with them for the moment to pass, wondering whether they are going to come out stronger from this moment.

They are. Gibbs steps forward, hugging Tony tight and not letting go, Tony hugging him back. Fingers twined in their shirts and nothing between them but the time they have lost.

“Glad you’re alive,” Tony murmurs quietly, words between him and Gibbs only.

“Let’s go home,” is all Gibbs says in response, letting go and turning to Ziva with his eyes shiny-bright. “Ziva, your leg—”

But Gibbs is no longer looking at her. He is staring past her, his eyes wide and body frozen. Utter shock written on every line of his face, his mouth twisting horribly, his breath coming sharp and stunned. She is too scared to turn, to see what has shaken him so, to look at what he takes a single, staggering step backwards from.

_“Steady on, Leroy,”_ she hears Fornell send distantly in his own wolf form. _“We’ve been looking for you.”_

The others are standing, Tony walking towards Ziva with half a smile on his face before he realises that Gibbs is as frightened as he is. The joy of their reunion quietens as they all look past Ziva to whatever approaches and, finally, Ziva turns too.

It is Fornell, but he is not alone. Other wolves are with him, lingering back. And spirits. There are spirits with them.

Two in particular move forward. A woman. A child. Both stare at Gibbs with just the same amount of shock as what he is looking at them with.

“Daddy?” the child says finally, a soft smile lighting her face. “Hi, Daddy.”

Abby makes a noise, covering her mouth. Ducky takes a deep breath. Kate lowers her head.

Tony just stares.

And Gibbs, after making a sound that is the exact sound Ziva will describe if ever asked what a heart sounds like when breaking, launches forward to scoop up his daughter into his arms, hugging her so tight that Ziva is not sure he will ever let go by choice. The woman is crying, standing alone for a moment before he grabs her too into a hug that encompasses his family, the living man and the dead he loves, pulling them tight and saying nothing that Ziva is willing to overhear. They are crying. All three are crying.

Ziva looks away because, if she continues to watch, much like Abby and Kate and Ducky and perhaps even Tim, she will likely cry too. Instead, she looks at Tony, who is watching with nothing familiar on his face.

“The dead are fading,” he says to her suddenly, nodding to a group of spirits nearby who are vanishing as they watch.

_“Yes,”_ Echo sends. _“They will all fade. This is not their land. The rune was broken when the Wild Hunt was summoned—this is no place for the dead. Some may linger for a while. Most will not.”_

Ziva looks at Kate, who swallows and squares her shoulder, then she looks at Gibbs who still has not let his family go. _“What if we are not ready to say goodbye?”_ she sends miserably.

It is Fornell who answers, his gaze landing on her. _“When are we ever ready, David?”_

And Tony, without hearing any of this, takes Kate’s hand and holds her close, watching Gibbs farewell his family one last time.

And together they wait for them to fade, ready to be there for the one man left behind.


	21. Kate and the Second Life

There’s something Kate has never wanted to see, and it’s Gibbs sitting alone on the empty road after his family fade from his arms. She doesn’t hear what they say to each other in those final moments and she’s glad for it. That’s for them to know… that’s for them.

But she’s always going to be haunted by watching him kiss his wife that one last time.

“Gibbs, I’m sorry,” she says when he finally stands and makes his unsteady way back to them. There are tears on his face, under the dust, and he doesn’t seem to notice that he’s still bleeding from a nasty gouge out of his shoulder. “Christ, I’m so sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he says and then does something completely unexpected: he smiles. “Got to say goodbye. I’m damn lucky.”

And she’s never going to forget how real that smile is either.

 

* * *

 

They help move people on. It’s hard, exhausting work when all they want to do is move on themselves, leave this place and everything here. Kate finds herself helping to wrangle volunteers to find injured survivors, helping corral medical and emergency personnel into some kind of order. By the time the streets are cleared of the injured and the dead, the sun has set and risen again and she’s so tired she can’t even think.

“Where’s everyone else?” she asks Tony when she finds him helping to move cars off the street, clearing paths for emergency vehicles. He’s disgustingly dirty, wearing a shirt that isn’t his that doesn’t do a very good job of hiding the rough bandages he’s stuck over the gashes in his back. Putting aside the haunting worry that she’s going to fade too—because there are still some spirits lingering, some even helping lead rescuers to people needing help—she helps him by steering the car he’s moving as he pushes.

“Ducky finally got Gibbs and Ziva to the hospital,” he says finally when they’re done, wiping sweat from his eyes and looking around at what the hazy dawn is revealing around them. “Tim’s gone to find his sister. Abby is helping get the spirits to the area the FBI is corralling them in until they can work out what they want, and Palmer is helping the search teams.”

“Spirits are hanging around?” she asks, her fake heart thumping.

“Yeah. Sounds like some of them don’t want to give this up, living again.” He looks at her and grins tiredly. “Stubborn shits. Guess what?”

“What?” she asks.

But he doesn’t tell her then, just winks and gestures for her to follow.

 

* * *

 

It’s a station for the marines who are helping the rescue efforts that he takes her to, strolling into the command centre without even pausing. “Found her,” he says as Kate follows, wondering who the hell he’s talking to.

She finds out fast.

“Kate,” says Jenny Shepard, looking tired and glowy and very dead. A spirit for sure. “Glad you’re still here. We’ve got work to do before we’re done.”

“Stubborn,” Tony murmurs from behind Kate, a grin in the tone of his voice. She considers kicking him but, really, she’s glad he’s there to be sassy.

And hell, she _is_ stubborn. She’s not done yet—there’s so much more she wants to do before the end.

 

* * *

 

And these are the days that follow.

Jenny only stays until hours before the funeral for her body. It’s a strange thing, saying goodbye to the spirit separately from the body, but Kate is pretty glad they have the chance. She says she’s done tying up loose ends and that she’s happy to go, and that’s all she tells them.

Gibbs, Kate assumes, she tells a lot more, because they close themselves off in Jenny’s office for the longest time and Gibbs just looks tired when he comes out.

The funeral is beautiful. Saying goodbye hurts. But everyone dies eventually, even Jenny Shepard. Even Kate.

She begins to wonder how long she has left to linger.

The death toll rises. By the time they’re done, counting the victims of the Banes and the fear and the panic, it’s almost at fifteen hundred. DC sinks into a mourning that’s not going to end anytime soon, but there’s something else among the grief. Kate watches and sees more than just sadness.

There are memorials over every part of the city. She looks for the people who are helping and finds them everywhere, on every street and at every station set up for the people who need help. The FBI take it upon themselves to find every spirit left behind and reunite them with their families, so they can fade back quietly into the fog where they belong. The dragons, once finished mourning those they’ve lost, fly over the city singing songs of hope and loss and love, everyone who hears them touched by the music.

And, at every memorial, on every TV segment set aside to discuss the tragedy, everyone speaks of the same thing: that, when the world had seemed to be ending, it hadn’t mattered what anyone was. It hadn’t mattered who they’d been standing next to when the Hunt rode, it hadn’t mattered if they were human or werewolf or elf or vampire. All that had mattered was that they were American, that they were people. That they were alive to stand together. They talked of the vampires’ heroism, of the mages who’d helped the military hold back the Banes, of those who’d helped break the shield.

It’s a grieving DC; it’s also a united DC.

Kate’s awed to be alive to see it.

They find bodies that are untouched, more than they could have imagined they would. The Wild Hunt had shown no mercy. In his prison cell, Mikel Mawher is found dead. The lead necromancer whose name they’d never learned is gone too, despite being locked in a government cell. When the Hunt rode, there was nowhere safe to hide.

Tony is very quiet when Kate asks him what will happen to the bitten vampires left now. It’s not just the necromancers who were decimated by the Wild Hunt—every vampire involved with the VFD, with the stealing and turning of the children, was taken too. Those that remain are revoked of their special status within the city, placed under the same Rule of Law as every other being there. They don’t protest; no vampire is untouched by the betrayal of their kin. Kate and Gibbs are with Tony when the news comes that his father’s body was found. They’re there when he’s told that, unlike the other vampires who had been fought hunched and terrified, their bodies untouched, Senior had died calm. Died smiling. Repentance. It’s cruel, but Kate doubts the Hunt has ever shown mercy. Well, rarely ever.

Ducky and Abby live. Kate wonders why, but doesn’t ask.

Tony deals with his father’s death alone. Sometimes, over those following days, Kate catches him looking thoughtful. The bitten vampires are still alive—the Hunt hadn’t taken them. Some return to their lives, knowing what they are. The rest are lost. Just lingering, like the spirits left behind but with none of the determination.

“They’re not your responsibility,” she reminds him quietly, catching him going through a file with each of their names.

“Yes, they are,” he says finally, closing that file with a snap. “I’m the last of my family, and I was spared for a reason.”

“You were spared because you didn’t have anything to do with it.” After all, Jeanne Benoit is still alive. The Hunt might be thorough, but they don’t punish the children for the sins of their parents.

“No,” he says, standing up and walking away. “I was spared because I needed to be.”

And that’s all she gets out of him about it, even as they watch as CPS finally comes for the little bitten vampire girl Ziva had found. It’s not a nice scene. The girl doesn’t want to go, crying the entire time as she fights to get back to Ziva, but it’s a necessary scene. She’ll have to be found a home for, although Kate doesn’t know where.

“Can’t her family take her?” she asks Ziva, who is hunched by her desk trying to ignore the crying, her own mouth thin and eyes bright. Kate gets the distinct impression that, if it wasn’t for the cast on her leg and the crutches she’s stuck on, Ziva would be over there fighting for the girl to stay too.

“They were offered,” Ziva says finally, the bitterness in her voice chilling. “They declined.”

“She’s not who she was,” Tony adds.

Gibbs says nothing, just stands and walks to the girl. “Hold my hand,” he says. The girl, surprisingly, does. “Good. Now, come on. We’ll walk together. Ziva?”

Ziva’s head lifts. She _is_ crying, Kate realises, flushing hot with second-hand embarrassment for the normally tough-as-nails woman.

“Coming?”

And, without a word, Ziva gets up, picks up her crutches, and goes. When they come back alone, no one mentions it. Goodbyes suck.

Kate’s learning to hate them herself.

 

* * *

 

It’s two weeks later when things begin to settle down into a fractured kind of normality. Kate hasn’t faded and the others have sort of stopped watching her warily, as though they’re kind of expecting her to at any minute.

She needs to go see her family, but she’s terrified of it too. What if she goes and that’s all that it takes for her to vanish? She doesn’t _want_ to fade—she loves the sun and the moon and these people too much to let them go, even if she’s desperate to find her brothers and sister and dad. They don’t even know that she’s back…

She’s there the day that Fornell shows up, asking to see Tony and Gibbs. Ziva’s benched with her leg, her scowl following them out as Kate jogs after them.

“Been slowly working through the spirits, those that don’t have family to speak for them,” Fornell tells them as they step out of the building and walk together across the lawn. “Only really got the hard-cases left. Those whose family are hard to find, those too young to help us out much. Got two of these with something in common.”

“What’s that?” Gibbs asks.

“You two. They’re asking for you. Couple of kids.”

Mystified, Tony and Gibbs exchange a look. Kate hovers, unsure of her welcome but curious as all hell.

“Well, we better go see what they want,” Gibbs says finally. “Come on, Todd. Keep up.”

 

* * *

 

Gibbs makes a strange noise when they walk through the door and find who is waiting in there for them, one of the kids sitting on the floor drawing on a sheet of paper and the other kneeling beside watching silently. Kate’s surprised by the drawing; most of the spirits they’d brought back weren’t anywhere near as corporal as she is, unable to pick things up. By the looks of the older kid, he can’t.

Kate knows the one drawing though, and so does Tony.

“Hi, Sammy,” she says, walking up and sitting next to him. He smiles happily at her, pushing his drawing forward shyly. So much more alive than when he’d wandered the dead paths, even though she knows it’s only an illusion.

The other kid just watches Gibbs and Tony nervously, his tail flicking. He’s not human. He’s some kind of centaur thing, half deer, half human, with shy brown eyes and small antlers. Kate looks at his skinny body half-hunched to hide his height, knobbly knees tucked in. There’s something heartbreaking about his ruffled curls and the neatly pressed sweater he’s wearing, something loved and lost.

“I asked for you,” the centaur-boy says to Gibbs, fluffy tail flicking again as he hugs his arms around his torso nervously. “Asked for a wolf with grey fur and blue eyes and a hurt shoulder… Agent Fornell said he knew exactly who I was asking for.”

“Kid said you were intimidating as all heck,” Fornell says from the doorway. “Course it was you.”

Gibbs just stares, something ghastly crossing his face. “You… you were aware?” he breathes. Tony just looks ill.

But the boy shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I… I was watching. I don’t know why I came back, no one called me through that wall… but I knew I had to get through. I could feel my body, somewhere. I couldn’t escape it, even though I kept trying. It _hurt_. Everything that happened to it, I felt, and it felt so… sick and horrible…” He holds up his hands, the narrow fingers just barely translucent. “I could see this horrible magic all through my hands and my body like it was some kind of poison. And the feeling in my head, like I wanted to _kill_ things—I could feel that too. And then when I got through the wall, I was dragged towards it, like a nightmare… and I found you, and him, stopping me. It should have hurt, but it didn’t. It didn’t. And I wanted you to know that it didn’t hurt because you looked sad to be fighting me.”

There’s quiet in the room as the boy comes to a shaky stop, his thin chest heaving as he breathes fast and shallow.

“Anyway,” he mumbles, blushing and flickering. “Thank you. I feel… better now. I feel better. Like maybe if I go back to the foggy paths now, I won’t be so trapped anymore.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Gibbs says roughly.

The boy shrugs. “Dying wasn’t so bad, I guess. It was fast. They were trying to catch me for… I don’t know, something horrible probably, but they messed up. I got killed and that was okay, but then they brought me back and that was…” He shuddered. “I wish I could see my family again though. They don’t know what happened to me. And they’re not in DC and I don’t think I can go to them… it’s so far away, I can barely feel them.”

“What’s your name, kid?” Tony asks. The boy looks at him, hope in the eyes that are just slightly too big for a human face. “Maybe if we know your name, we can find them for you.”

“It’s Aaron,” the boy says, tail flicking once more. “Aaron Robson. My parents are Marie and Elliot, from Jasper, in Canada. I don’t know how to reach them… we don’t exactly have a landline.” He looks down at his hands, the hands that are fading as they watch. “And I don’t think I have much time…”

“I’ll find them for you, Aaron,” Gibbs promises. Kate’s heart breaks a little for the pain in both their voices right then, and the way they look at each other, this lost boy and the man who grieves him. “I’ll tell them you’re free now.”

Aaron smiles sadly. “Thank,” he replies, his voice already a whisper. “My friends call me Art.”

And, just like that, he’s gone.

In the quiet that follows, Sammy still adding the finishing touches to his drawing—Kate looks at it and breathes through the hurt that seeing the deer-shaped figure he’s drawing brings—Fornell steps forward. “We looked him up,” he tells Gibbs. “Got a rough area to send Mounties too, if you want to get them to do it. Or we can get you over there.”

“I’m going,” Gibbs says shortly. “My job to do, Tobias. One question.”

“What’s that?”

Gibbs is still looking at the empty space where the spirit had been. “How old was he?”

Tony doesn’t look like he wants the answer to this, but they get one anyway.

“Eleven last month, if he’d been alive. Was taken when he was ten.”

Maybe it’s a good thing the Hunt took every necromancer, Kate thinks at that moment. Otherwise, she doubts Gibbs would stop until he’d killed every last one himself.

 

* * *

 

Before Gibbs leaves to go see Art’s family, he comes with them to take Sammy home. It’s a hard ride and, Kate knows, it’s not going to get any easier. Tony sits rigidly in the front seat, ignoring the argument Kate is having with Sammy over whether he needs to wear a seatbelt or not, the file on Sammy’s family— _his_ family—sitting untouched in his lap. Gibbs drives. Neither of the two men speak, until they draw up outside a family home in Manassas, Virginia, and stare in at the empty front yard. They’d called ahead. The people in there know that they’re bringing their son’s spirit home to them.

They don’t know about Tony.

“You need me—” Gibbs begins, but Tony shakes his head and robotically undoes his seatbelt. “Tony… you don’t need to do this alone.”

“I’m not alone,” Tony says finally, the first time he’s spoken all day. He looks back at Sammy and smiles. “Come on, squirt. Let’s go see your mommy and daddy, okay?”

“Okay!” Sammy says, bouncing out of the car.

Kate and Gibbs watch them walk up the path, hand in hand, and knock on the door. When the woman opens the door—Kate gasps to see how much like her son she looks, both the grown and the child—and cries out at the sight of the little ghost, neither look away. They move inside, the door closing behind them.

Kate and Gibbs sit in silence.

“Do you think he’s going to tell them?” Kate finally asks, her heart going out for the man in there facing a family he never had the chance to know.

“No,” Gibbs says finally, looking like he’s casually napping in the front seat. Kate knows that’s a lie; he’s got every sense locked on that house and what’s happening within.

“Why not?”

“Because. It’d hurt them. This way, he’s giving them back the memory of a child they lost… if he tells them who he is, he’s just confusing things. Making the grief harder. Making them wonder if their child is really gone.”

Kate swallows, frustration hurting her throat. “But he’ll have his family back,” she murmurs, tears stinging her eyes. God, she has to go home… before she fades, before this ends, she _has_ to go home… “He’ll have the chance to get to know them, to be… be their kid.”

But Gibbs doesn’t answer and, when Tony finally emerges and crosses the lawn, blank-faced, he does so alone. They’re quiet as he slides into the passenger seat and, without opening the file, gives it to Gibbs.

“Need to talk?” Gibbs asks, sliding the file down next to him. There’s something unspoken between them. A man comes out onto the porch, grey-haired and watching them thoughtfully. Tony doesn’t look at him. “You know you’re walking away from the only family you got left.”

“No, I’m not,” Tony says firmly. “I’m driving away _with_ the only family I want. Let them grieve their son. I’m not him.” And he looks at Gibbs, a tired smile crossing his face. “And I don’t want to be. You guys know who I am. I don’t need to fight for that anymore.”

Gibbs isn’t looking at him or her, so Kate can’t see his face, but she can hear the pride in his voice. “Atta ’boy, Tony,” he says as they drive away and leave Manassas behind.

 

* * *

 

Tony’s still apartment hunting and she’s, well, technically unable to sign a lease, so they’re both crashing at Gibbs’s house in the interim. It’s a creepy place in the middle of the night without Gibbs there in the week that he’s away looking for Art’s family, which is probably why Kate’s so on edge the night that the Huntsman arrives.

She knows instantly, sitting bolt upright in the guest bedroom she’s been given—Tony in the master bedroom since Gibbs wouldn’t give up his couch—and _feeling_ that something is wrong. Horrified, sure that maybe they’ve finally come back for her, she stares at the door and waits for the ghostly hunter to walk in. But no one comes, and the feeling doesn’t fade.

It takes her a second to realise: _Tony._

She goes from in the bed to beside him in seconds, teleporting next to him with a rush of fear that’s sharp enough that she’s worried everyone else has felt it too. They have an annoying tendency to pick up on her feelings now, something she’s not sure she’s glad for.

Tony’s in Gibbs’s basement, unconcerned by the Huntsman standing by the door looking down at him. He just keeps sipping from his glass of bourbon, barely even sparing Kate a glance.

The Huntsman speaks: “You requested an audience.”

Kate’s heart stops for a beat, but Tony answers blandly: “Echo told me to. We did everything required of us—she told me to remind you that we are _not_ puppets. We don’t dance to your bugle or whatever that horn thing is. We assisted you to return to this world, and we have requests.”

“You are in no position to demand anything of us.”

“Aren’t we?”  Tony cocks his head at the Huntsman, entirely unafraid of them. “Seriously? We just stopped the goddamn deadocalypse. You think we can’t figure out how to send you back unless you play nice? The world is different now, creepy. There are more of us and, unlike the last time you were around, we’re _united_ now.” He stands, approaching the Huntsman unafraid. Kate wants to tell him to be careful, but she’s too wired to speak. “I’m a vampire who stands alongside a werewolf. My best friends are a golem, a cheetah-therian, and a human-turned-something-spooky. I took an oath to defend the citizens of this country, all of them. I _will_ uphold that oath. The last time you and your buddies galloped around this world, my kind were still the things that went bump in the night—now? Now we’re a part of the day too. And, if you don’t negotiate our terms, we’ll turn everyone in this world against you. Good luck fighting the _entirety_ of United America.”

The Huntsman stares, silent and thoughtful. Kate’s pretty sure he’s going to just vanish, or kill them both and _then_ vanish. There’s simply no way that—

“What are your terms?”

Her mouth drops open. Jesus fuck.

Tony _did_ it.

“Me? Only two.” Tony leans back against the desk, looking tired suddenly. “One, you need to meet with our leaders and negotiate just who exactly you’re gonna reap. That’s not mine, by the way—I got told to pass that on to you if you turned up, Director Vance’s orders. Otherwise, they’ll consider you a threat and act accordingly.”

“Very well. And your other?”

Tony breathes slowly, clearly bracing for this: “The bitten vampires,” he says finally, Kate bracing as well. Oh god. What is he going to do?

“We did not take them. They contain souls.”

“Yeah, they do… but some of them don’t want them. Some of them want out. I want you to give them a choice to stay or… go.”

“You would have us… ask? Ask the bitten ones if they would prefer life or death? Is this a kindness?” The Huntsman, despite his emotionless tone, seems almost surprised.

“Yeah, I would. Every one of them. And then, when you’re done, I want you to add this to your list—any new bitten vampire, any one that’s turned? Take them before they wake. End the line now. No more forced souls, got it?”

The Huntsman nods slowly. “Yes. They will not be given the chance to wake. A mercy, perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” Tony murmurs, not meeting Kate’s gaze.

But the Huntsman doesn’t leave. He just keeps watching Tony. Finally, he speaks. “What is your choice?”

“What?” Tony sounds startled like he’d braced to say _this_ and this alone, thrown now that they’re off-script.

“Will you stay or go? I am to give you this choice, I understand. You are bitten. I can take you now.”

Tony just laughs, draining his glass and putting it down. “Naw,” he says, restarting Kate’s heart as she breathes again. “I’m staying. Gibbs would spend eternity kicking my ass if I left him now.”

“Damn right,” Kate murmurs. She regrets this moments later, as the Huntsman now looks at her. “Oh god, _what?”_

“And you,” he says blandly. “You helped us too. I can give you a reward for that.”

Oh.

Well, that’s easy.

“I want to stay,” she says firmly. “No fading out, no going back to the foggy paths. Until I’m done here, I want to stay—can you give me that?”

And the Huntsman nods and says, “Yes.”

 

* * *

 

They’re climbing the stairs out of the basement after, still reeling from the leftover shock of the Huntsman’s visit. Despite him being gone, the room still feels cold. She’ll be glad to climb back into bed after that. And then… well, she knows she’s staying now. Tomorrow, she’ll call her family and… and go home. Finally.

She can’t help but grin at that.

“Kate?” Tony asks, pausing as she walks out into the kitchen and turns back to look at him leaning on the doorway. “Why’d you stay?”

“I don’t know,” she answers. “Why did you?”

He grins. “Dunno. Figured I had stuff left to do.”

“Damn right you do,” comes the gruff voice from the darkness, Gibbs appearing like a wraith and scowling at them both. “Don’t remember giving permission to host the undead in my house, DiNozzo.”

“Well, you let _Kate_ in, so—”

The sound of hand slapping head is probably the greatest thing Kate’s heard since dying.

 

* * *

 

They’re given the Award for Heroism. All of them.

Tony and Tim are both the first of their kind to receive the honour. Their families are there to watch, all of them. Kate’s the first of her kind too, but really that’s because she’s the only of her kind. No one else, not even the dozen or so remaining spirits in the world, are anything like she is.

Her family is there to see it too. Roy cries, the sap. Her nieces and nephews barely restrain themselves from cheering.

This. This is what she came back to life for. Seeing her families’ smiles, and seeing Tony’s awed expression as they pin the medal to his shirt, seeing Tim blink back stunned tears, seeing Gibbs stare proudly at them with his own head high. Being here with them.

All of them.

 

* * *

 

Two days later, Ziva rocks up in the middle of the night looking as frazzled as they’ve ever seen her. Kate and Tony are bickering over Gibbs’s shitty TV set, both turning to see Ziva dashing in the front door and shouting for Tony.

“My house, David,” Gibbs says grumpily. “Come right in.”

But Ziva ignores him. “I need your help,” she says, striding towards Tony with her eyes wild and limp bad enough that Kate’s sure she’s been overdoing the ‘gentle walking’ her physio had suggested she indulge in.

“Alright, but you know, it’ll cost you,” Tony says, leaning back and grinning with delight at having Ziva David over a barrel. Kate rolls her eyes at his cocky grin. He should know better than to think he’s got Ziva—

“I need you to raise a child with me.” Ziva doesn’t blink as she says this. Kate looks from her face to Tony’s, just as stunned as he looks but distant enough from the question that she can just straight up enjoy how flustered he is right now.

“Ha ha,” Tony laughs nervously. “Ha ha?”

“Why are you laughing? There is not time for laughing—yes or no!?” Ziva’s lip curls a bit as she says this, a wild-eyed panic in her expression that’s more cheetah than person. Gibbs sips his beer, face devoid of expression but eyebrows ever so slightly lifted.

“Ah,” says Tony.

“Tony, please.” Ziva steps forward, pleading. Panic has given way to desperation. “They are going to take her away, to a foster home, _today_. I tried to take her but they will not give a vampire child to a non-vampire, and her family refused her. They say she is a demon now, unholy. Monstrous. She is a _child_ , and she needs someone.”

There’s silence after that. Gibbs slides his beer onto a nearby table, stepping forward and touching Ziva’s arm gently. She turns into that touch, Kate’s sure only to hide that she’s trembling and near tears.

“She needs someone, and I need her,” Ziva finishes. “It is… stupid, weak. Human. I know. But… she knows me, and she has lost enough people she knows.”

“Stop.” Tony’s voice is sharp. Kate winces. Here they go… this is going to be rough. It’s not— “Alright. Jeez, alright. Ah, we don’t have to like, fake date, do we? Because, well, I’m not sure I’m—”

“I’ll vouch for you both,” Gibbs answers, grabbing his keys from the hook. “Come on. Let’s go get her.”

“You confuse me,” Kate tells Tony on the way out of the door.

“Why?” he asks her, grinning crookedly. “Our family is already weird as hell. What’s one more lost soul? Shit, Gibbs kept you. You’re probably the oddest of us all, Miss Won’t Stay Dead.”

He’s not wrong, not really.

It’s still weird.

 

* * *

 

There’s a vampire as Air Force One, and Kate is pretty sure that this is the worst parody of her former job ever. It’s barbeque weekend at Gibbs’s to celebrate Tali’s ninth birthday—two years after they pretty much saved the world—and they’re telling the same story they tell every single time. It’s the ‘time we saved Kate’s ass’ story, and Kate is pretty sure they’re by now making most of it up.

Tali’s almost too big to fit but Tony’s still got her up on his shoulders, sprinting around the backyard going “nrrrrooom” as he plays the part of Air Force One, arms outstretched. Abby is being both Kate and Ducky, alternatively, her accent for both atrocious. Gibbs is being Gibbs, despite not being involved, standing by the grill and occasionally saying, “I didn’t say that,” when Tony ad-libs a line for him.

“Your family is ridiculous,” Kate tells Ziva quietly when the woman reappears with a beer in hand. “Tony’s the worst aeroplane ever.”

But Tali is laughing hysterically, they’re all alive, and Kate is here to see it.

“He is, how is it said?” Ziva says, opening her beer and smiling over the lip of it. “An ‘acquired taste’. And there are worse tastes to acquire. Hello, McGee.”

McGee has arrived, wandering in through the gate and lighting up when he sees the aeroplane running around. “Sweet, are we doing Air Force One again?” he asks. “Can we do when you guys met me next?”

“Sure, McGeek, if you want to bore the kid to tears. There’s nothing interesting about _you_.” Tony pokes his tongue out as he says this.

“That’s not true,” Tali objects. “You’re _super_ interesting, Uncle Tim, promise. Probably even more interesting than Uncle Gibbs, and _definitely_ more interesting than Daddy. But not Ima’le, sorry.” She doesn’t really sound sorry at all, grinning down at him with a look that’s one-hundred percent Tony DiNozzo.

Tony looks at her, then looks at Ziva. “Adoption is still an option, right?”

“Sure,” Kate answers. “But I doubt anyone will adopt _you_. They tend to like them younger and prettier.”

His pout is almost worth her being forced into playing the corpse next. Almost. But, corpse or not, she wouldn’t have traded this for the world. It’s her second life, and she absolutely plans to live it all the way through.

Together.


	22. Present

And they’re not living happily ever after, but they are always happy to be living.

Together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story._
> 
> **_Frank Herbert_ **


End file.
